Infrastructure protectionMaking Highways, Tunnels, and Bridges More Resilient to Extreme Events

RESIST (RESilient transport InfraSTructure) is a 36-month project that has received funding by the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program, and was launched on 1 September 2018. Its consortium consists of 17 partners from 9 European countries with representatives from academia, construction and the transport industry.

RESIST aims to provide a methodology as well as tools for risk analysis and management for critical highway structures (in the case of bridges and tunnels) that will be applicable to all extreme natural and man-made events, or cyber-attacks to the associated information systems. Its goal is to increase the resilience of seamless transport operation and protect the users and operators of European transport infrastructure by providing them with optimal information.

Nowadays, there are several issues to be confronted regarding transport operations. Firstly, road transport is the most vulnerable mode to extreme weather events (heavy storms, floods) or extreme natural events (earthquakes). Moreover, a large number of bridges and tunnels, which are among the most critical land transport structures, have been in operation for at least half a century and therefore widespread signs of deterioration are obvious. Land transport structures need inspection, vulnerability assessment and appropriate interventions. Inspection, though, in inaccessible bridge and tunnel areas, or structures with high volumes of traffic, is expensive, time consuming and potentially dangerous while structural/vulnerability assessment is also a lengthy process which is especially painful after extreme events. Last but not least, the transport information systems can face dangerous cyber-attacks which can cause disruption of the transport operations. All the above show that not only all the transport operations but also, and more importantly, human lives are in jeopardy.

The RESIST project follows a holistic approach on strengthening the critical infrastructure of the road network having in mind that resilience to extreme natural and man-made events should be achieved by upgrading of the existing transport infrastructure, as opposed to building new, which is prohibitively expensive.

RESIST aspires to combine a number of aerial robots with structural vulnerability assessment modules, since aerial robotics have shown very promising results in the field of structural health monitoring providing speed, improved access and higher safety of human actors. Moreover, a mobility continuity module, providing to the project a comprehensive rerouting mobile application with multi-modal capabilities and relevant back office functionalities as well as a risk assessment and management module are in progress. In order to cover the case of the extreme event damaging local communication infrastructure, RESIST utilized the REDCOM node which is capable of completely substituting local communications. The RESIST technology will be deployed and validated at two pilots in real conditions and infrastructures.

The 1st Pilot 1 will be held at the Egnatia Bridge T9, in Peristeri area, Greece. There will be simulations used to assess the impact of various extreme events such as strong winds, floods, severe earthquakes, explosions, cyber security attacks, etc.

The 2nd Pilot will be held at the Millaures Viaduct of the A32 Motorway and the St. Petronilla Tunnel of the A32 Highway in Italy where an actual field evaluation and demonstration of the proposed system in a GPS denied environment will take place.