Resilience and Adaptability Analysis of Port-Centric Transport Networks for Meteorological Disasters: A Case of Shanghai Port

Abstract

Climate change has intensified the frequency and severity of meteorological disasters, posing significant challenges to the resilience and adaptability of port-centric transport networks (PCTNs) and global trade stability. Unlike previous studies that adopt generalised resilience frameworks or treat disaster types uniformly, this study develops a disaster-specific, integrated assessment framework whose novelty lies in coupling three complementary methods, each playing a distinct role: (i) integer programming optimises post-disaster recovery decisions under budgetary constraints by selecting cost-effective measures that maximise re-stored container-handling capacity; (ii) Monte Carlo simulation (10,000 iterations) captures the stochastic nature of meteorological disruptions and quantifies probabilistic resilience under typhoons, storm surges, and heavy fog; and (iii) an Analytic Hierarchy Process–Evidence Reasoning (AHP–ER) hybrid integrates subjective expert judgement with objective field data to evaluate adaptability across a four-level indicator system, thereby reducing the subjectivity of conventional multi-criteria approaches. Applied to Shanghai Port, the framework yields normalised resilience scores on a [0, 1] scale, where 1.0 denotes full operational continuity (network throughput equals demand) and values below 0.80 indicate substantial disruption requiring urgent intervention. Heavy fog produces the lowest score (0.73, ‘moderate-to-severe disruption’), followed by typhoons (0.81, ‘mild disruption’) and storm surges (0.89, ‘near-normal operation’), revealing that low-visibility events—not high-energy storms—pose the dominant operational threat at Shanghai Port. Translating these findings into practice, the study recommends the following: (1) deploying real-time visibility-monitoring (LiDAR) and AI-driven traffic-scheduling systems to mitigate fog-related disruptions; (2) reinforcing gantry-crane anchoring and prepositioning emergency power supplies in typhoon-prone berths; (3) prioritising hinterland-port handling redundancy in Jiangsu and Anhui sub-networks (adaptability scores 0.639 and 0.642); and (4) piloting an integrated Shanghai–Zhejiang cross-regional emergency-response corridor with shared berthing rights and standardised joint drills. These targeted, quantitatively grounded recommendations offer port authorities and policymakers an evidence base for prioritising infrastructure investment and organisational reform to safeguard global supply chains against escalating climatic threats.

Bibliographic Information