Urban Infrastructure Resilience Assessment During Mega Sport Events Using a Multi-Criteria Approach

Abstract

Critical infrastructures share the same space and mutual dependencies, and consequently contribute to city's overall resilience. However, each has different assessment methods and metrics, which prevents the integration of the performance results for different infrastructures into a single holistic evaluation index that can reflect the city's overall resilience and expected performance. To address this challenge, we propose the development of a multi-criteria-based integration approach that can allow the combination of different evaluation results from different assessment methods through partial factors. The proposed equation incorporates several factors, which can be divided into four groups: (1) method-efficiency factors, (2) infrastructure importance factors, (3) infrastructures' interdependency factors, and (4) strict limits that ensure that the infrastructures are suitable for hosting mega sports events. Using this approach, we hope to open the way for future research into suitable factors and facilitate resilience-based design in sustainable development and municipal planning.

Resiliency Assessment of Road Networks during Mega Sport Events: The Case of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022

“…Considering the limited literature in this regard, we hope such research would pave the way for other researchers to address this topic with all its potential, considering the sensitivity and huge investments associated with MSEs. Additionally, this study is a first step in creating a holistic assessment of urban resilience during MSEs, including other critical infrastructures [56]. However, future research can customize this framework for considering multiple fan zones, instead of central gathering zones, or incorporate several modes of transportation, such as metros and buses, based on their expected share of travelers, or assess the possibility of compensating for the lost capacity or the possibility of bridging the lost elements of other modes of transportation.…”

“…Furthermore, host nations are increasingly expected to apprehend strict environmental obligations and are encouraged to achieve carbon neutrality, promoting a trend of compact MSEs, as in the 2022 WC in Qatar, where all the stadia are within the Doha metropolitan area and the furthermost distance between venues is less than 60 km [13,52,54]. This compactness means concentrating the demands on the supporting infrastructures throughout the event, which in the WC case, extends over a month, and ensuring that these infrastructures can sustain the expected disturbances; such disturbances can range between natural hazards, intentional attacks, accidents, and failures propagated between interdependent infrastructures [55][56][57]. However, in the face of these disturbances, the main focus during MSEs should be on preserving functionality over recovery, as this is essential for maintaining an acceptable service level and ensuring a remarkable visitor experience.…”

“…However, in the face of these disturbances, the main focus during MSEs should be on preserving functionality over recovery, as this is essential for maintaining an acceptable service level and ensuring a remarkable visitor experience. Among these infrastructures, the road networks play a critical role in providing mobility throughout the city and between points of interest, such as fan zones and event venues, and in affecting the visitors' experiences and the event's success [56].…”

“…However, during an MSE, the importance or credibility of these disturbances vary, and planners should have the capacity to reflect this in their design by assigning different weightings for each disturbance, based on local priorities and conditions. The impact of other critical infrastructure failures, or of failure propagations, could affect and destabilize the road network; however, such scenarios result from the hazards mentioned earlier and should be considered on a more holistic level, as suggested in [56].…”

International Tourists' Satisfaction with Tour Guide's Service Quality at Babylon Archaeological Site

“…Safety and security are considered to be very significant when travellers decide to visit a specific place. Safety and security also matter for tour guides, as it was mentioned that one of the factors which affect the tour guides' service quality are safety and security at visiting places [14]. Besides, safety and security at visiting places can substantially impact the success of tourist destinations [15].…”