A performance-based approach for innovative emergency planning

The present paper proposes a performance-based methodology aimed to identify strategic road infrastructures at the municipal level, useful to understand which roads remain available in case of emergency. The definition of the strategic road infrastructures starts from the comparison of the risk level of different alternative paths that connect the same starting point (strategic building) to the same final point (emergency area) or to a different one that is more convenient for a series of criteria. The estimate of a Risk Index (and its components) is carried out through a strategy of integration among multi-criteria techniques, Geographic Information System, fuzzy logic and structural vulnerability analysis. A case study developed in a district of Municipality of Rende, in Italy, is described in order to compare traditional planning choices with new criteria defined by proposed methodology. Obtained results offer a final formulation of the Risk Index and demonstrate the innovative contribution of the novel approach and its usefulness in several fields.