Responding strategically to natural hazards: the role of hazard experience, infrastructure vulnerability, and risk perception in transit agency coordination with stakeholders

Abstract

How public organizations respond strategically to natural hazards is relevant for maintaining functionality and protecting citizens. An essential component of strategic response is coordinating with multiple organizations in ways that provide resources and mutual support. Drawing from resource dependence and cognitive behavior theories, we investigate how different contextual factors predict coordination strategy. We focus on transit agencies in the US and develop hypotheses about how the experience of natural hazards, the transit infrastructure conditions, and public managers’ risk perceptions determine their coordination as responses to immediate and future extreme weather events. This study aims to contribute to the strategic management of natural hazards literature. In particular, we expect that the findings will illuminate how transit agencies consider service area vulnerabilities as part of their strategic coordination efforts. Further, the study will provide insights to managers who are facing the need to balance organizational capacity, risk, and equity.

Keywords:

• natural hazards
• transit agency
• risk perception
• infrastructure vulnerability
• interorganizational coordination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Notes

1 Most data we collected for 2017 are based on a 5-year estimate. See: https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/transit-agency-profiles.

2 The individual-level response rate is calculated by the number of valid individual responses divided by the total number of transit professionals, i.e., 313/900=34.8%.

3 The agency-level response rate is calculated by the valid number of agencies (respondents indicated in the survey) divided by the total number of transit agencies, i.e.,194/273=71.06%.

4 See the special report about the role of transit in emergency evacuation here: https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/sr/sr294.pdf.

5 See the ranking strategy here: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/placeandhealth/svi/documentation/SVI_documentation_2018.html.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Federal Transit Administration, US Department of Transportation.