Rethinking infrastructure design from component failure to systemic resilience

Abstract

Abstract Bridge design typically uses load-based design criteria focused on risk thresholds from engineering practice and standards, overlooking cascading effects on connected infrastructure and regional economies. We argue for a systems-based design that balances risk reduction with resilience — the capacity to recover from disruptions. Using the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse as a case study, we estimate economic impacts assuming impact on local transportation networks only as well as integrating cascading failures on surrounding infrastructure (e.g., closure of the Port of Baltimore), employing the regional economic model TranSight. Results show combined bridge-and-port disruptions produce substantially larger losses in GDP, employment, disposable income, and labor force, with some indicators not recovering until 2040. The Baltimore region exhibits lower resilience to compounding shocks, highlighting the need for a resilience-based framework that considers interconnected infrastructure. We conclude infrastructure design must move beyond component-focused risk criteria toward an explicit, quantifiable resilience framework.