Seismic risk analysis of highway systems: New developments and future directions

A research project is being conducted to develop a new procedure for seismic risk analysis (SRA) of highway systems. The SRA procedure is multi-disciplinary, modular, and GIS-based, and includes new and improved models for scenario earthquakes, seismic hazards, bridge vulnerability, and transportation network analysis. The procedure has been used to evaluate the seismic performance of the highway system in Shelby County, Tennessee, in order to demonstrate the applicability of the method to an actual system. Future research will include the incorporation of improved models to estimate economic losses due to highway system damage, the continued development of the hazards, component, and system modules of the procedure, development of highway system database guidelines for SRA, and release of a public domain software package for SRA of highway systems.