Project number: PSR-18-07

Funding source: Caltrans

Contract number: 65A0674 TO 003

Funding amount: $99,600

Performance period: 02/01/2019 to 01/31/2020

Project description

The economic impacts of a major disruption to seaports and their associated transportation infrastructure can be extensive and can affect people in a region unequally. To estimate the aggregate and distributional economic consequences of such disruptions, we developed an integrated transportation-socioeconomic analysis model to analyze the impacts of port and transportation network disruptions and the effectiveness of resilience tactics across socioeconomic income groups. The integrated model is applied to a simulated earthquake scenario that affects the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and their associated inland highway freight transportation network.

The total GDP losses stemming from port disruptions, hinterland transportation cost increases, and general building damages from the simulated earthquake scenario are estimated to be $20.7 billion in the Los Angeles Metro Region and $25.8 billion in the U.S. Various resilience tactics can help reduce the GDP impacts to $12.1 billion in LA and $11 billion in the U.S., representing a loss reduction of 41.3% and 57.6%, respectively. The lower level of impacts on the U.S. economy as a whole is due to a shift of economic activity to areas outside of California, representing a GDP increase of $1.3 billion in Rest of the U.S. The distributional analyses indicate that the percentage impacts are a relatively higher proportion of income for the lower- to middle-income groups for port disruptions, but are higher for the middle- and higher-income groups for general building damages.