Framework for modelling interdependencies between urban systems
FRS researchers described a workflow to apply a framework for modelling interdependencies between households, businesses, and infrastructure systems, and their response to disruptions.
Interdependencies between infrastructure systems, businesses, and households, and the complexity of these systems are increasing as a result of emerging new technologies. These interdependencies affect the way that systems respond to disruptions and the impact of these disruptions.
Understanding the impact of these disruptions is critical to assess the resilience of urban systems. It is challenging to model these complex interdependent systems and apply these models to real-world areas and disruption scenarios.
In this paper, Dr Mateusz Iwo Dubaniowski, Postdoctoral Researcher of the Resilience Analysis of High-Density Urban Systems module at the Future Resilient Systems programme and Prof. Hans Heinimann address these challenges, by presenting a workflow for the application of a framework to model interdependencies between households, businesses, and infrastructure systems, and their impact on disruptions. The researchers then applied the framework to Singapore’s Clementi district to identify and evaluate any issues and modelled five infrastructure systems and resources including the water supply, power supply, consumer goods, industrial goods, and people. They also analysed the resulting cost of eight disruption scenarios using novel metrics they described in the paper.
The results of this study confirm that the model and devised metrics can be used to assess resilience of systems. Also, the researchers found that multi-system failures have the largest impact on urban areas, and that disruptions have a disproportionately large effect on small vulnerable areas. In addition, the findings showed that disruptions to key utility systems such as the water supply or power supply were more impactful than disruptions to businesses or transportation networks, which are more easily reconfigurable.
Scientists, policymakers, planners, and domain experts may find the results of this study useful. Scientists can better model infrastructure systems, businesses, and households to assess their resilience and use the workflow to apply the model to different configurations of urban areas. Policymakers can apply the proposed model to support decisions regarding infrastructure systems development and investments. Furthermore, infrastructure and city planners can use the model to understand which parts of a city are affected the most by disruptions and generate the highest costs when disrupted. Domain experts can then draw conclusions regarding the causes of these costs and suggest system improvements that may decrease the overall cost.
The paper external page "Framework for modeling interdependencies between households, businesses, and infrastructure system, and their response to disruptions—application" was published in Reliability Engineering & System Safety.