The importance of resilience in transport infrastructure DEV

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In December last year, I drew our readers' attention to the need of incorporating resilience in transport infrastructure.

The incident in Heathrow Airport last month illustrates this vividly.

A fire in a high-voltage transmission substation in North Hyde caused total power loss to the Heathrow Airport and its surrounding areas, paralyzing it for more than a day. Fortunately, it happened at night when traffic was relatively light and the interruption to air traffic - although most inconvenient for those arriving and departing passengers - did not cause too much of a disaster.

But it begs the question as to how a strategically important transport infrastructure can be affected by a single power substation fault.

Most facilities in modern cities are fed by more than one source of power supply, commonly called a ring circuit, to allow for sufficient redundancy. This is to ensure that, in the event of an interruption to one circuit, the other circuit can continue to provide adequate electrical power without interruption.

The fact that power supply was resumed within 18 hours pointed out that some form of alternative power supply could be made available, though this cannot be regarded as satisfactory.

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