Building Resilience into Freight Transportation Systems

The management of transportation systems for resilience has received significant attention in recent years. Resilience planning concerns the actions of an organization that reduce the consequences of a disruption to the system the organization manages. Little exploration has been made into the connections between resilience planning and the actions of a state department of transportation (DOT) that contribute to resilience of a freight transportation system. Conclusions are presented from collaborative research between the Washington State DOT Freight Systems Division (WSDOT FSD) and researchers at the University of Washington. Activities of the WSDOT FSD that contribute to resilience are identified, and one such activity undertaken by WSDOT to improve communication with system users is described. This and other activities can be undertaken by other DOTs that want to improve the resilience of their freight transportation systems at relatively low cost.