Multi-hazard risk assessment of rail infrastructure in India under local vulnerabilities towards adaptive pathways for disaster resilient infrastructure planning

“Lifeline of the nation” is the motto of Indian Railways as it connects through a common thread, billion plus population in one way or the other. The National Rail Plan for India – 2030 focuses on creating a ‘future ready’ Railway system by 2030 by suitably integrating new railway systems like high-speed rails. However, rail infrastructure is exposed to multi-hazards and disasters sometimes disrupt safe rail operations. This study explores rail infrastructure risk assessment at a national scale utilizing the UNDRR framework and synthesized application of geospatial technologies with a focus on disentanglement of local vulnerabilities of the rail infrastructure assets utilizing factors of health of bridges, visibility obstruction to level crossings, labour wages & their regions and GSDP under multi-hazard scenarios. The results revealed that the NR and NFR were identified as high-risk routes under the risk analysis of physical and social vulnerability scenarios, followed by CR Railways. The average annual frequencies of emergency cases in each zone show a correlation r (17) = 0.4758 with the combined mean risk ranks for each zone. In comparison to socioeconomic factors, which contribute to indirect losses, physical factors directly affect safety and contribute to direct losses. Further, outcomes depict more accidents on Indian Railways during the monsoon (nearly 50%) and cold weather (29%) seasons. The study suggests that with the participation of key stakeholders, including urban and transport planners, an integrated approach is helpful in identifying critical rail routes towards risk-informed adaptive disaster-resilient infrastructure planning for providing safety, continuity and reliability of essential rail services.