Indirect Economic Impacts due to Transportation Disruptions: A Modified CGE Model for Passenger Flow Disturbance

Transportation systems are vital for cities’ emergency response activities and for long-term recovery during and after natural or man-made hazards. While their networked nature enables the mobility of humans, goods, and services, the same characteristic exposes transportation systems to complex failures, which can impact the economic system at multiple scales beyond the immediate location of the hazard. A series of economic methods have been used for the assessment of the economic impacts of transportation disruptions. However, previous studies have not adequately investigated the indirect economic impacts of transportation disruptions in terms of passenger flow disturbances. Especially, the indirect economic impacts of changes in households’ available time (such as work and leisure) due to transportation disruptions were overlooked. This paper introduces an explicit estimation model that was constructed based on the computable general equilibrium model with consideration of the time constraint. The relationships between the households’ time spent on a series of activities and household utility are illustrated. This model can be integrated into the interdisciplinary framework proposed in the authors’ previous research based on hazard characterization and damage assessment, analyses of transportation systems, and economic models, that achieved a more comprehensive understanding of the economic impacts of transportation disruptions.