Cost-based resilience assessment of bridges subjected to earthquakes

Purpose: Transport infrastructure resilience is of paramount importance for societies, therefore its quantification is urgently needed. A resilience assessment framework based on well-informed resilience indices is presented and applied for assessing the resilience of representative bridges exposed to earthquakes. Design/methodology/approach: The framework quantifies the robustness of bridges against different seismic hazard scenarios, by using realistic fragility functions and the rapidity of the recovery and/or retrofitting after the occurrence of a certain degree of damage, based on realistic restoration functions. Findings: Two different approaches for the modeling of the restoration tasks are examined. Both direct losses due to structural damage and indirect losses due to traffic disruption are estimated. Originality/value: A new cost-based resilience index is introduced and alternate approaches for expressing the restoration strategies are examined and assessed. The results facilitate owners to enhance cost-based resilience management toward more resilient infrastructure.