Resilience of transport infrastructure

The increase in temperature due to climate change has been significantly higher in Alpine regions than the global average, with Alpine regions being more sensitive to changes of their climatic conditions. The consequences range from large-scale melting of glaciers and permafrost soils to increased thermal stresses on road and rails.

Climate change is causing natural phenomena such as drought, storms, heavy rainfalls, rock falls, landslides and mudslides to occur more frequently and severe, putting transport infrastructure at serious risk. EUSALP Action Group 4 investigated how local resilience – the capacity of a particular infrastructure – is able to withstand natural hazards and / or recover from external impacts illustrated with concrete examples from the Alpine Region.

A second dimension investigated in the paper is systemic resilience - the capacity of the transport network to enable traffic flows to continue operating smoothly during infrastructure disruptions, by providing an alternative routing and/or mode of transport.

The outcome of this analysis contributes to an overview of relevant road and rail infrastructure works and their effects on traffic flows and capacity management during disruptions.

Despite different situations reflected in the collected examples, the paper draws some general conclusions with relevance for resilient infrastructure planning in the Alpine regions.

 EUSALP AG4 TA3 Final Report WP_23-25

(pdf - 635 KB)

 EUSALP AG4 TA3 Resilience complete version

(pdf - 1.32 MB)