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Human-Made Disasters: Electric Power and Transit Linked Outages

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Definition

Electric power outages related to transit service continuity are associated with a number of factors that originate in transit and electric power system characteristics, such as the capacity to withstand equipment issues; environmental conditions, including natural hazards, such as extreme weather and climate change impacts on energy systems (U.S. DOE 2013a) and human responses to those conditions; unintentional human actions, such as the accidental, inadvertent disruption of a power line or street salting; and intentional human acts, such as sabotage and cyberattacks (Zimmerman 2012a, Chapter 7; Zimmerman 2017).

Introduction

The scope of electric power and transit linkages in this entry signifies connections between electric power and rail transit systems primarily to move transit vehicles that provide vital transportation services. Electric power is also used for supporting facilities such as signals, switches, lighting for rail, vehicles, and stations and for cleaning and...

Keywords

  • Electric power
  • Rail transit
  • Infrastructure interdependencies
  • Power outages
  • Natural hazards
  • Human unintentional and intentional actions

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the following grants or cooperative agreements listed below:

The National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement #1444755, the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (URExSRN).

“Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISP) Type 1: Reductionist and integrative approaches to improve the resiliency of multi-scale interdependent critical infrastructure,” funded by the NSF (#1541164).

“Dynamic Resiliency Modeling and Planning for Interdependent Critical Infrastructures,” funded by Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI), U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, supported by the US Department of Homeland Security under Grant Award #2015-ST-061-CIRC01.

“Developing Secure Strategies for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks in Connected and Autonomous Vehicles,” from C2SMART, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, US Department of Transportation. US DOT award number 69A3551747124.

Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings, views, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Homeland Security, or the US Department of Transportation.

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Correspondence to Rae Zimmerman .

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Zimmerman, R. (2020). Human-Made Disasters: Electric Power and Transit Linked Outages. In: Shapiro, L., Maras, MH. (eds) Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_291-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_291-1

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