University Events

Description: TOPIC: Algorithms for Transportation Network Vulnerability Assessment, Defense, and Restoration

LOCATION: Lester W. Cory Conference Room, Science & Engineering Building (Group II), Room 213A

ABSTRACT:
This thesis presents three algorithms for transportation network vulnerability assessment, defense, and restoration: (i) an algorithm to prioritize transportation network restoration after disruption by a regional event, (ii) a game-theoretic vulnerability assessment methodology, which explicitly considers the impact of link defense on network vulnerability, and (iii) dynamic traffic assignment methods to assess the criticality of links within a public transportation network. Contribution (i) considers a transportation network with multiple types of facilities and multiple types of hazards distributed throughout the network, where some hazards require response from two or more facility types. Contributions (ii) embeds a game within a genetic algorithm to search for a near optimal deployment of defensive technologies for successive stages of the United States High-speed rail (HSR) network. This combination enables notably greater flexibility than traditional game theoretic approaches, which impose a single set of rules and a static setting in which the game is played. Instead, one of the players, the defender, is also permitted to allocate finite resources to identify a modified configuration of the game that optimizes their payoff, in this case minimizing network vulnerability. Contribution (iii) provides a time varying method to assess the criticality of links to network disruptions, whereas previous methods were static and could only consider the relative vulnerability of network links at a fixed point in time.

The algorithm to prioritize transportation network restoration after disruption by a regional event introduces an average weighted vulnerability metric to penalize a restoration strategy that do not reduce vulnerability quickly. This metric is employed within a greedy algorithm to identify a near optimal restoration strategy that rapidly reduce vulnerability. The game-theoretic vulnerability assessment methodology can assess the effectiveness of alternative defense strategies in spite of despite dynamically evolving networks, where the vulnerability of the links can increase and decrease over time. This assessment approach makes it possible to compare the relative utility of alternative defense and deterrence strategies. Dynamic traffic assignment methods to assess the criticality of links within a public transportation network can be used to identify both the times when links are most vulnerable to disruption.

NOTE: All ECE Graduate Students are ENCOURAGED to attend.
All interested parties are invited to attend. Open to the public.

Advisor: Dr. Lance Fiondella

Committee Members: Dr. Hong Liu, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, UMass Dartmouth and Dr. Ashrafur Rahman, Connecticut Department of Transportation

*For further information, please contact Dr. Lance Fiondella at 508.999.8596, or by via email at lfiondella@umassd.edu.