Harry W. Richardson

Integrating Transportation Network and Regional Economic Models to Estimate the Costs of a Large Urban Earthquake

In this paper we summarize an integrated, operational model of losses due to earthquake impacts on transportation and industrial capacity, and how these losses affect the metropolitan economy. The procedure advances the information provided by transportation and activity system analysis techniques in ways that help capture the most important ecomonic implications of earthquakes. Network costs and origin-destination requirements are modeled endogenously and consistently. Indirect and induced losses associated with direct impacts on transportation and industrial capacity are distributed across zones and ecomonic sectors. Preliminary results are summarized for a magnitude 7.1 earthquake on the Elysian Park blind thrust fault in Los Angeles. Copyright 2001 BlackwellPublishers

PRIDE and Prejudice: The Economic Impacts of Growth Controls in Pasadena

Whereas most debates about growth controls have focused primarily on the impacts of land and house prices, this study examines anticipated job and output losses. Using the example of the proposed nonresidential and residential controls approved by the voters of Pasadena, California, as a case study, the authors employ a spatial allocation/regional input-output model (the Southern California Planning Model) that allocates highly disaggregated sectoral impacts (direct, indirect, and induced) to 219 zones (cities and unincorporated areas) in the Los Angeles metropolitan region. The largest economic losses are the result of denied nonresidential construction, and these are cumulative over the ten years of the proposed ordinance (now defunct after the 1992 elections). The lowest-skilled occupational groups are the hardest hit in terms of lost jobs, and almost three fifths of the employment losses occur in the city of Pasadena itself. These results offset the favorable claims for growth controls made by their advocates.

National Economic Impact Analysis of Terrorist Attacks and Natural Disasters

This book develops a national economic impact model to estimate the effects of simulated terrorist attacks and natural disasters on individual US States and economic sectors. The model, called NIEMO (The National Interstate Economic Model) looks at interindustry relationships and interregional trade. It is highly disaggregated making the model very accurate. The authors examine potential attack targets including theme parks, sporting events, bridges and tunnels in the national highway system as well as attempts to shoot down airplanes or spread foot-and-mouth disease. Covered natural disasters are almost all real world: Hurricane Katrina, the Joplin Tornado, the Gulf Oil Spill and Hurricane Sandy. The effects on State economies caused by the closing international borders in response to a global pandemic is also examined.

Alternative Terrorist Attacks on the Twin Ports of Los Angeles-Long Beach

This chapter sums up some of the recent research on the potential economic impacts of terrorist attacks on the twin ports of Los Angeles-Long Beach. The research considers two types of attack—radiological bombs in the ports and conventional bombs to blow up access bridges, either together or in isolation. The analysis uses the Southern California Planning Model (SCPM), a 3,226 zone input–output model of the five-county Southern Californian region with an endogenous transportation network (this is the SCPM2 model). The research measures the business interruption losses associated with alternative scenarios that vary with port closure periods, bridge reconstruction and the duration of radiation plume evacuations. These losses could range up to

A Radiological Bomb Attack on the Downtown Los Angeles Financial District

35 billion, approximately two-thirds of which are interregional.

Peak Load Road Pricing: Potential Impacts on Los Angeles

This chapter summarizes a study on the economic impacts of a radiological bomb attack on a major office building in Downtown Los Angeles financial district. A radiological bomb will generate effects within an extensive radiation plume that is divided into two zones with varying evacuation times, an inner zone with 1 year evacuation and an outer zone with only 1 month evacuation time. The SCPM (Southern California Planning Model) is employed to simulate household and firm relocation in three scenarios: (1) an exit scenario where households and firms in both the inner and the outer zones disappear, (2) a relocation scenario where households and firms in the inner and the outer zones relocate to somewhere else within the five-county metropolitan region, and (3) a hybrid scenario where the households and firms in the inner zone disappear while those in the outer zone relocate. The impact analysis focuses on business interruption effects only. It finds that the effects on the inner zone play a dominant role because of its long evacuation period. The exit scenario has an aggregate impact of

A Bomb Attack on a Shopping Mall

5.9 billion of output losses and 40,391 job losses. The relocation scenario has neutral effects from a regional perspective but direct losses in the impacted zones are 7,257 jobs and

An attack on the airline system

2.617 billion of output. The hybrid scenario may be the most realistic one but its impacts are only marginally lower than the exit scenario because of the dominance of the inner zone impact.

Bridge and tunnel closures (TransNIEMO)

Peak-load pricing has long been seen as a way to internalize externalities and as a set of incentives to shift some peak-hour trips to off-peak periods. The policy has also been viewed as a mechanism to generate revenue. However, it is an open question how travelers trade off time for money and respond to peak and off-peak pricing differentials. This generates some timely and related questions, including: (1) How can we model the activity location and traffic implications for multiple time-of-day periods in a major metropolitan area?; and (2) What are the network level-of-service and urban development effects of implementing peak-load pricing on selected routes?

The Joplin tornado of 2011

Many of the international mall attacks occurred on the peripheries of the malls/shopping centers rather than deeply inside. This suggests that preventive measures, no matter how expensive and/or thorough, can never be foolproof (Rand 2006; Button 2008, among others, have reinforced this argument).