Quantifying Road Transport Resilience to Emergencies: Evidence from China

Xue Zhang (), Yi Lu, Jie Wang, Donghui Yuan and Xianwen Huang
Additional contact information
Xue Zhang: School of Traffic & Transportation Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410114, China
Yi Lu: School of Traffic & Transportation Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410114, China
Jie Wang: School of Traffic & Transportation Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410114, China
Donghui Yuan: China Construction Third Bureau First Engineering Co., Ltd., Wuhan 430040, China
Xianwen Huang: School of Civil Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215009, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 20, 1-22

Abstract: Facing the shock of emergencies, how resilient is the road transport system? In this process, how are the system’s absorption capacity, adaptability, and recovery capacity? These are very important for the development of sustainable road transportation. Taking China’s road transport during the COVID-19 pandemic as the research object, this paper introduces an integrated resilience quantification method, draws a road transport resilience curve, and comprehensively and dynamically analyzes and compares the resilience of China’s road transport system at different stages among different regions and under different epidemic waves. The results show that the resilience of road passenger and freight transport differs in the face of external disturbance. Freight transport resilience is better than that of passenger transport. Compared to passenger transport, freight transport is more robust; the impacted speed is slower, the recovery speed is faster, the recovery capacity is stronger, and the affected period is shorter. There is regional heterogeneity in road transport resilience. This heterogeneity is reflected in the whole change process of system performance with external disturbance, including absorption capacity, adaptation capacity, and recovery capacity. The resilience of road transport under different waves of the epidemic is different. Compared to the first wave of the epidemic, the resilience of road transport indicators at all stages has been dramatically improved in the later rebound wave of the epidemic. This can help in the development of evidence-based road transport sustainability strategies.

Keywords: road transport; resilience; traffic; emergencies; COVID-19; recovery capability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/20/14956/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/20/14956/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:20:p:14956-:d:1261244

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().