A framework for modeling interdependencies among households, businesses, and infrastructure systems; and their response to disruptions

Urban systems, composed of households, businesses, and infrastructures, are continuously evolving and expanding. This has several implications because the impacts of disruptions, and the complexity and interdependence of systems, are rapidly increasing. Hence, the authors face a challenge in how to improve their understanding about the interdependencies among those entities, as well as their responses to disruptions.The aims of this study were to (1) create an agent that mimics the metabolism of a business or a household that obtains supplies from and provides output to infrastructure systems; (2) implement a network of agents that exchange resources, as coordinated with a price mechanism; and (3) test the responses of this prototype model to disruptions. This investigation resulted in the development of a business/household agent and a dynamically self-organizing mechanism of network coordination under disruption based on costs for production and transportation. Simulation experiments confirmed the feasibility of this new model for analyzing responses to disruptions. Among the nine disruption scenarios considered, in line with the authors' expectations, the one combining the failures of infrastructure links and production processes had the most negative impact. The authors also identified areas for future research that focus on network topologies, mechanisms for resource allocation, and disruption generation.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2020.107063
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832020305640
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/09518320
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Dubaniowski, Mateusz Iwo
  • Heinimann, Hans Rudolf
• Publication Date: 2020-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 107063
• Serial:
  • Reliability Engineering & System Safety
  • Volume: 203
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0951-8320
  • Serial URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/reliability-engineering-and-system-safety

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Businesses; Complex systems; Households; Infrastructure; Networks; Service disruption
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01843892
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 25 2022 3:51PM