This article focuses on the issue of assessing the cascading effects of critical energy and transport infrastructure elements at the fundamental level. The introductory part deals with the typology of failures and their impacts, which spread through the critical infrastructure system. At this stage, the paper presents current approaches to assessing the cascading effects and, in particular, addresses a newly developed assessment methodology. The following part defines the initial conditions of assessment and describes selected elements from the areas of energy and rail transport to which the methodology will be subsequently applied. The main part of the article is a case study of the proposed methodology, assessing the cascading effects by calculating the value of their risks, depending on the resilience and correlation of the rated elements.
Road transport is a key means of transporting people and cargo on land. Its particular advantages are speed and
operability, which are balanced, however, by dependence on road infrastructure. Road infrastructure reliability is an important factor
in its functioning. If some elements of road infrastructure are disrupted or fail, the function of dependent infrastructures, such as
the integrated rescue system or industry, are also impaired and may fail. These important elements of road infrastructure should be
identified as critical and be given greater attention when identifying weaknesses and implementing subsequent security measures. This
article introduces the Identifying Critical Elements of Road Infrastructure (ICERI) method, which was designed to make use of Cascading
Impact Assessments (CIA). The use of CIA allows critical elements to be identified through impact escalation analysis. These impacts can
therefore be monitored not only in road transport infrastructure but also across the entire critical infrastructure system.
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