Public Responses to Operator Information Disclosure in Urban Infrastructure Accidents

With an increasing number of infrastructure accidents due to natural or manmade disasters, robust emergency management protocols and transparent communication strategies for public expectation have become the subjects of much research in both academia and in practice. This paper aims to explore the impact of information disclosure on public response related to urban infrastructure accidents. By combining a qualitative study based on routine accident management of the Shanghai Metro and a quantitative study based on the Changping Line Crash of the Beijing Subway, this paper explores the effects of time-related and focus-related information disclosure on sentiment of public response, respectively. Findings of the two studies are as follows: the sentiment of public response after actual recovery time disclosed by the operator is significantly negative; the overtime in recovery process also results in a negative response sentiment; different content focuses of operators’ information have significantly different impacts on the sentiment of public response; and, compared to singular information disclosure, mixed-focus information with operational and apologetic messages tends to show more negative emotions and a greater disparity in emotional values. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge in two ways: (1) it highlights the importance of operators’ information disclosure in emergency accidents, and advance the research on public opinion in the operation stage of the urban infrastructure project lifecycle; and (2) it develops an “operator-disclosure” to “public response” framework and revealing the mechanism of dialogue between internal operators and public stakeholders, so as to enrich the research in urban infrastructure emergency management.