Rural road network performance and pre-disaster planning: an assessment methodology considering redundancy

This paper introduces a new methodology to evaluate the performance of rural road networks when a link in the network is disrupted due to events such as natural disasters, accidents, and maintenance closures. As a measure of network resilience, we propose a simpler approach to quantify redundancy by introducing two indices that link the concept of road network redundancy with the increase in travel distance of the overall network when a road link fails. We apply the problem formulation to a real-world rural road network which was heavily affected by the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal. Based on the results from our analyses, we found these indices easy to use, pragmatic, and reliable for the case under study. With the proposed tool, decision-makers can predict and monitor the performance of rural road networks for pre-disaster (or predisruption) planning, thereby ensuring the smooth connectivity for goods and services during emergencies.