Socioeconomic impacts of resilience to seaport and highway transportation network disruption

An integrated transportation-socioeconomic model is developed to analyze the economic conse-quences of and resilience to seaport and associated transportation network disruptions. Since such disruptions can affect people in a region unequally, the model is constructed to analyze both aggregate economic impacts and impacts across socioeconomic groups. We illustrate the model's usefulness in a simulated earthquake scenario affecting the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Total GDP losses from port disruptions, highway transportation cost increases, and general building damages, working through regional and interregional supply-chains, are estimated at $24.2 billion in the Port Region and $30.2 billion in the U.S. as a whole. A combination of several resilience tactics is estimated to reduce GDP impacts by 41.3% in LA and 57.6% in the U.S. The distributional analysis indicates the extent to which lower-to-middle-income groups are more proportionally impacted by port disruptions and middle-to-higher-income groups are more impacted by building damages.

Automated summary

An integrated transportation-socioeconomic model is developed to analyze the economic consequences and resilience to seaport and associated transportation network disruptions. A simulated earthquake scenario affecting the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach shows significant total GDP losses, while a combination of resilience tactics can reduce GDP impacts effectively. Distributional analysis indicates that lower-to-middle-income groups are more impacted by port disruptions, while middle-to-higher-income groups are more impacted by building damages.