The Network Reliability of Transport

The reliability of transportation networks has become an increasingly important issue as sustained economic growth and improvements to the quality of life around the world lead to increases in the value of time. Consequently, schedules and routes need to be able to accommodate the unexpected, like accidents, disasters or traffic flow fluctuations, with as little loss in operational efficiency as possible. Sources of unreliability include variation of demand and supply. It is widely expected that network reliability analysis will play a more important role in the planning, design and management of transportation facilities and networks in the future. This book is an outcome of the First International Symposium on Transport Network Reliability (INSTR), held at Kyoto in 2001, and consists of 24 selected papers. It covers various aspects of transport network reliability, such as definitions and methodological developments for reliability indices, behavioural analysis under uncertainty, evaluation methods for the disaster resistance of transport networks, and simulation/observation of travel time reliability.