Resilience and systems- A traffic flow case example

Abstract

Resilience has increasingly become a crucial topic to the function of various real-world systems as our planet undergoes a rising trend of uncertainty and change due to natural, human and technological causes. Despite its ubiquitous use, the term resilience is poorly and often inconsistently used in various disciplines, hindering its universal understanding and application. This study applies the resilience system interpretation framework, which defines resilience irrespective of its disciplinary association, in the form of adaptation and adaptive systems, to two traffic flow systems. The system framework defines resilience as the ability of the system state and form to return to their initial or other suitable state or form through passive and active feedback structures. Both components of the system framework are demonstrated through practical simulation scenarios on the modified viscous Burgers’ equation and the LWR-Greenshields model equipped with an adaptive Extremum seeking control, respectively. This novel and systematic understanding of resilience will advance resilience analysis, design, and measurement processes in various real-world systems in a unified fashion and subsequently pave the way for resilience operationalization and its integration into industry standards. A novel system definition for resilience and its constituent elements in the form of adaption is presented. The system framework is subsequently applied to two simple traffic flow systems. Modified viscous Burgers’ equation and LWR-Greenshields model equipped with an adaptive Extremum seeking control demonstrate the passive and active feedback structures as the two tools for obtaining system resilience. This cross-disciplinary system framework offers the potential for a greater understanding of resilience, eliminates overlap, and paves the way toward resilience operationalization.