An integrated resilience-based failure risk assessment method of highway tunnel operation and maintenance systems for fire accidents

Highway tunnel systems, as sociotechnical infrastructure with multiple subsystems, are vulnerable to significant fire threats due to various factors. To address inadequate performance in operation and maintenance (O&M) activities during the fire management cycle, the concept of system resilience failure risk is introduced, grounded in system resilience theory. A comprehensive resilience-based failure risk assessment method is proposed to integrate fuzzy and random uncertainties in human cognition and reasoning, adhering to the principles of disaster evolution. The approach comprises qualitative and quantitative components. The qualitative aspect employs the enhanced resilience matrix and bow-tie model within the technical, organizational, social, and economic framework to capture and analyze resilience factors in each subsystem. The quantitative aspect utilizes the cloud-based risk matrix with improved Mandani inference to evaluate failure risk levels. A case study on the Paomashan Highway tunnels in China was conducted to demonstrate the practical applicability of the proposed method. The findings indicate that the resilience failure risk level of the highway tunnel O&M system is moderate, with room for improvement. Based on the minimum-security requirements for various risk levels, priority should be assigned to the organizational and economic dimensions of the recovery subsystem, followed by the organizational dimensions of the resistance and adaptation subsystems. The proposed method facilitates precise fire control guidance, enriching disaster prevention knowledge for highway tunnel O&M systems by incorporating system resilience theory into risk management under uncertainty.