Equity analysis and improvement in transportation resilience optimisation at the pre-event stage
Tingting Zhang, Chence Niu, Divya Jayakumar Nair, Vinayak Dixit, S. Travis Waller
Abstract
It is broadly accepted that transportation planning models must evolve to consider equity and fairness in their role of supporting the design of society's future mobility, as a lack of equity or fairness can directly impact residents’ social wellbeing. However, social equity is seldom considered in resilience-related improvement that is crucial for transport networks to protect against recurring natural and man-made disasters. In addition, there is no single universally accepted definition for equity/fairness which, as a result, significantly complicates quantification. Therefore, this research identifies multiple frameworks for the quantification of model-amenable metrics so that each of the identified potential approaches can be further examined and trade-offs considered. Results suggest that differences in inequity reduction are observed among different equity mechanisms for a given level of investment. In addition, the results demonstrate that a pure focus on the most vulnerable populations is not necessarily to promote equitable development.