Coordinating critical transportation infrastructure vulnerability

3. A State DOT Guide to Highway Vulnerability
3.2 CATEGORIZATION OF TOOLS
Each of the fifteen self-assessment tools was examined and ranked based upon how it addressed
each of the four phases of the emergency response process: Planning and Prevention, Response,
Recovery, Mitigation. Furthermore, each tool was examined to see if it incorporated a regional
approach to assessing vulnerabilities or if it focused solely on one infrastructure element. Based
upon these two areas, a set of 36 criteria was developed. Each of the four phases has two subgroups:
Agency/Organizational needs and Resources needs. A list of the criteria is provided in
Appendix B. Each of the sixteen tools was examined in detail against the criteria and was ranked
using a 3-point Likert scale to determine a basic understanding of how each tool addressed the
criteria. A ranking of High, Medium or Low was used and a blank cell indicates that the tool did not
address the criteria at all. Below is the definition of each rank:
Blank—The tool does not address the criteria
Low—The tool partially addresses the criteria.
Med—The tool moderately addresses the criteria.
High—The tool completely addresses the criteria.
An approach was developed in order to categorize the tools. Four categorizations were chosen in
order to rank the tools against each other and a set of rules were developed in order to categorize
each tool as one of the four. Below are the four categories and the rules associated with each:
Robust: The tool addresses all 4 Emergency Response Phases and has a minimum of 15
“high” marks
Comprehensive: The tool addresses at least 3 of the 4 areas and has a minimum of 5 “high”
marks
Adequate: The tool addresses at least 2 of the 4 areas and has a minimum of 5 “Med” marks
Limited: Those tools that do not meet the criteria above
3.3 ANALYSIS
Presented in Table 3.1 is the catalog of self-assessment tools. Each of the fifteen tools is presented
as a single column and the criteria are presented in rows. The first two rows provide the
classification for each tool and the categorization. Each phase of the emergency response process is
separated by a shaded bar.
Seven of the fifteen tools (47%) address all four phases of the emergency response process.
However, only of two of those seven have sufficient “high” marks to warrant a classification as
Robust. These two tools also address two of the three tool classifications covering
Model/Framework and Questionnaire.
PUBP 710/722 Page 13 of 60
WMATA Case Study June 5, 2003