Resilience assessment and enhancement of regional transportation system

As an essential component of urban transportation systems, regional transportation systems serve as connection to the urban-level transportation network and satisfy the first-mile-and-last-mile travel needs of neighborhood residents. Due to the special features of regional transportation systems, such as high network density and various transportation modes, regional transportation systems are highly susceptible to various disruptions, which further affect the daily mobility of urban residents. Developing resilient regional transportation systems that can both withstand and recover from disruptions is critical to ensuring smooth and uninterrupted travel of urban residents. However, existing studies have primarily focused on the resilience of urban-level transportation systems, while the resilience assessment and improvement of regional transportation systems have received much less attention. In this paper, we develop a performance-based resilience assessment method tailored to the characteristics of regional transportation systems. A discrete-time simulation is designed to generate performance indicators that serve as inputs to this assessment method. To enhance system resilience, we introduce micro-transit buses, which are commonly used for last-mile transportation or feeder services, to transport urban residents affected by disruptions. A case study based on the regional transportation system in the Tiantongyuan area of Beijing is presented. The proposed resilience assessment method is applied to analyze the resilience of the existing transportation system and to examine the impact of introducing micro-transit buses. Comparisons of resilience indices, performance curves, and passenger flow distributions before and after the introduction of micro-transit buses demonstrate the effectiveness of micro-transit buses in enhancing the resilience of regional transportation systems.