Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241

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Safety Science
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A security vulnerability analysis model for dangerous goods transportation T

by rail – Case study: Chlorine transportation in Texas-Illinois
⁎
Masoud Khanmohamadia, Morteza Bagheria, , Navid Khademib, Seyed Farid Ghannadpourc
a
School of Railway Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran
b
School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Iran
c
Department of industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Transportation of dangerous goods has always been in the spotlight of terrorist groups with the aim of inflicting
Dangerous goods transportation severe harm to humans and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to present a security vulnerability
Terrorist attacks analysis approach to find critical areas along railway transportation routes specifically with regard to trains
Game theory carrying dangerous goods. In this study, ALOHA and ArcGIS software are used for checking the security vul-
Security vulnerability/robustness analysis
nerabilities and to estimate the population and affected infrastructure due to a malicious attack. Chlorine
Rail network resilience
transportation on the Texas-Illinois rail corridor (in the US) is studied by developing a routing model. The
priorities of the infrastructure for the terrorist’s attack are a variety of land use types as sports, educational,
commercial, and health centers; religious places; government buildings; airports; parks; and museums. In ad-
dition to the infrastructure, the size and the density of the population within the threat zone are main items for
the terrorist to plan the attack. With demographic layers in the GIS software, the number of people residing in
the study area that are exposed to the attack is identified. A zero-sum game theoretic approach is employed to
model the interactions of terrorist and operator's strategies. After running the model, (i) the operator’s route
selection probabilities are calculated, and (ii) the terrorist’s target link selection probabilities are also de-
termined. This paper shows that how critical links can be identified for different terrorist purposes, which could
be the subject of further security measures.

1. Introduction
The number of disasters, man-made or natural, has grown to an
unprecedented level during the past decade (Guha-Sapir et al., 2012).
Studies have shown that the incident causes are divided into three ca-
tegories: (i) natural events (geographic/climatic), (ii) operational and
technical errors caused by hardware/software and human faults, and
(iii) subversive activities such as terrorist attacks (Faturechi and Miller-
Hooks, 2015).
Terrorist activities have substantially grown in recent years. As
shown in Fig. 1, the number of terrorist attacks on transportation sys-
tems in recent years has increased dramatically. Along with the growth
of incidents related to terrorist attacks and the development of various
forms of attacks especially toward smarter operations, transportation
systems have been proposed as an attractive target for the terrorist
groups.
Rail transportation systems as well, because of the movement of
bulk cargo and a large number of passengers, have experienced terrorist
attacks several times; the attack on a railway station in Turkey killed
128 people in 2015, was one of the latest terrorist incidents on the rail
transportation system.
Annually, large volumes of dangerous goods, including fuels and
chemicals are carried by rail. For example, in the US, 140 million tons
of dangerous goods are shipped by rail annually (US-Department-of-
Transportation, 2007; Verma and Verter, 2007). ‘Size’ and ‘volume’ are
main criteria for the difference between rail and road systems in the
transportation of dangerous goods. On average, each tank wagon car-
ries three times more volume than a road fuel tanker, and a train also
consists of several wagons. That is the reason that an attack on a rail
line carrying dangerous goods may cause the far greater extent of da-
mage to the society rather than the road transportation (Verma and
Verter, 2007). However, after the September 11 attacks, intelligence
agencies were aware that terrorists can target dangerous goods or use
them as a potential weapon to severely damage people, environment,
and other infrastructure (Milazzo et al., 2009).
Rail transportation network vulnerability analysis has developed

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: m_khanmohamadi@rail.iust.ac.ir (M. Khanmohamadi), morteza.bagheri@iust.ac.ir (M. Bagheri), navid.khademi@ut.ac.ir (N. Khademi),
ghannadpour@iust.ac.ir (S.F. Ghannadpour).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.04.026
Received 31 July 2017; Received in revised form 27 February 2018; Accepted 27 April 2018
Available online 19 May 2018
0925-7535/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Khanmohamadi et al.
Fig. 1. Number of terrorist attacks on transportation systems in the world from
1970 to 2015 (Global-Terrorisem-Database, 2016).
increasingly in the last decade with the goal to identify the most critical
locations in the rail system against disruption causes (Bababeik et al.,
2017a, 2017b). In a rail system, the vulnerability of the network may be
more pronounced than reliability because of potentially severe con-
sequences if specific links are disrupted (Khademi et al., 2015a, 2015b).
Similarly, the security vulnerability in rail systems can be of significant
importance and value.
Assessing the threats, the researchers came to the idea that network
security-vulnerability analyses and measuring the consequences of
malicious attacks are serious matters of concern. A vulnerability ana-
lysis system can lead to mitigate threats as well as to reduce the con-
sequences of attacks and can be an appropriate approach to alleviate
security risks. As a result, the vulnerability analysis of dangerous cargos
is essential because of the potential danger of this material for humans.
So far, no specific and unique definition is provided for the vul-
nerability analysis of the transportation system. Many qualitative ap-
proaches for calculating the risk follows this original equation (e.g. see
Moore et al., 2007):
Risk = Threat × Vulnerability × Consequences
According to Moore et al. (2007), the US Department of Homeland
Security has launched a framework for analyzing and managing the
risks associated with terrorist attacks against critical infrastructure as-
sets, which is Risk Analysis and Management for Critical Asset Protec-
tion (RAMCAP). In RAMCAP, the ‘threat’ is defined as the predominant
motive of the terrorist behind the attack and his ability to do so, ‘vul-
nerability’ is any structural and operational weakness in the transpor-
tation infrastructure, and ‘consequences’ include financial and en-
vironmental damage from the attack.
Berdica (2002) has defined the robustness of the transportation as
“the readiness for an event that can cause a significant reduction in the
provision of services in road transportation.” This definition can also be
used for other modes of transportation. Haimes et al. (2003) created a
different “risk assessment methodology for critical transportation in-
frastructure.” In their methodology, risk scenarios based on the criti-
cality of the assets were considered, and the analysis framework took
into account both the probabilities and consequences.
We are facing two approaches to analyze the vulnerability of
transportation systems. In the first approach, only the cost and con-
sequences of incidents are calculated as monetary values or as quanti-
fiable performance indicators while in the second approach, vulner-
ability is measured based on both probabilities and consequences. The
second approach is followed in this paper.
In line with the studies on the vulnerability of rail freight networks,
Kozan and Burdett (2005) proposed an approach for sustainable train
timing to identify critical operations and the impacts on other compo-
nents. Reggiani (2013) proposed a conceptual framework with the aim
of integrating the concept of ‘network resiliency’ in the area of
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Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241
transportation security. In his study, he investigated the relationship
between vulnerability and resiliency and proposed operational mea-
sures for security resiliency. Gedik et al. (2014) considered the certainty
of information and decision making and provided a mixed integer
programming model and shortest path algorithm for the vulnerability
analysis of freight trains through analyzing the cost of delay. Their
study considered only the trains carrying coal in North America.
In the context of security vulnerability analyses, there are studies in
the literature on the subject of protecting critical assets of chemical
facilities. For example, van Staalduinen et al. (2017) proposed a
quantitative security risk assessment methodology to identify the place
and time of the protection of critical assets of a chemical facility. They
presented a Bayesian model-based approach in the evaluation of
threats. Khakzad et al. (2017) developed a multi-criteria decision ana-
lysis, the analytic network process (ANP), to the security-based rank
ordering of hazardous facilities such as chemical plants. Argenti et al.
(2018) evaluated the vulnerability of a chemical facility against in-
tentional attacks using a Bayesian network approach that analyzed the
interaction between attack impact vectors and the resistance of the
targeted units. Regarding other studies conducted to locate security
resources and increasing the security of chemical facilities, interested
readers may refer to (Zhang and Reniers, 2016; Zhang et al., 2017; Zhu
et al., 2017).
In addition to above, identifying critical infrastructures is also a
serious matter of concern in the investigations of security vulner-
abilities. Ham and Lockwood (2002) provided a methodology for
identifying critical infrastructures taking into account the risk factors,
disruption effects, and military performances. They focused on the
identification of sections of the traffic network that are vulnerable to
terrorist attacks. Latora and Marchiori (2005) provided a method for
evaluating the importance of network components based on traffic
performance indicators. They concluded that those network nodes with
less connection to the network are the most desirable targets for ter-
rorist attacks and need more protection. Pinker (2009) developed a
terror threat information model capturing the uncertainty in timing and
location of terror attacks. They tried to create a mathematical frame-
work for analyzing counterterrorism decision making with some de-
fensive mechanisms and warnings. Ukkusuri and Yushimito (2009)
presented an innovative approach using the concepts from complex
network science to assess the importance of road transportation net-
works. They employed traffic assignment techniques to assess the cri-
ticality of the network links by developing also an integer programming
model. They implemented this procedure to measure the criticality of
large infrastructure in Manhattan, in the US and demonstrated the ef-
fectiveness of this procedure for identifying critical links on the trans-
portation network. Sapori et al. (2014) presented a risk-based metho-
dology using process engineering for a quantitative assessment of
security management systems. Wang et al. (2017) identified central
China's power grid as a vulnerable power system and identified critical
areas. By implementing three different models for vulnerability ana-
lysis, they found that only a few vertex disruptions could lead to some
critical collapse.
In the transportation science, the topic of vulnerability analysis
emerges where there is a serious and significant factor for the occur-
rence of a network disruption. Transportation of dangerous goods is by
far the most appropriate example. The release of dangerous goods due
to a malicious attack and its impact on people is an important matter in
investigating the security aspects of the vulnerability of transportation
of dangerous goods. Huang et al. (2004) evaluated the risk of dangerous
goods transportation by integrating Geographic Information Systems
and Genetic Algorithms that was demonstrated on a typical portion of
the road network in Singapore. They identified a set of evaluation cri-
teria related to safety, costs, and security.
Simulation software and geographic information systems (GIS) are
usually employed to evaluate the consequences of terrorist attacks as
well as the vulnerability of transportation systems. For example, Lisi
M. Khanmohamadi et al.
et al. (2007) analyzed several scenarios of the terrorist incidents at a
crowded place and concluded that the consequences of attacks de-
pended on the attack type and the characteristics of the infrastructure.
In this study, the threat zone due to the release of chlorine was iden-
tified using GIS. Milazzo et al. (2009) stressed the management of
emergency responses to the terrorist attack on the transportation of
dangerous goods in urban environments. They employed ALOHA and
EFFECTS software to calculate the threat zone of incidents. Given the
fact that it is not possible to predict the location and time of the attack,
they came to the point that identifying only the potential locations of
terrorist activities is of great value. Garbolino and Lachtar (2012),
proposed a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) to analyze the
propagation of toxic substances and explosive dangerous goods. They
utilized CAMEO and GIS software to simulate the aftermath of in-
cidents. It was also found that the use of event simulation software may
come in useful to reduce the security vulnerability. Reniers and Dullaert
(2013), by offering a security vulnerability analysis, proposed an ap-
proach to determine the security risk levels of different methods of
dangerous goods transportation. In this study, risk levels were obtained
based on the probability of incident consequences. It was found that
among the four methods of transportation, including pipeline, rail,
road, and inland waterways, pipeline transportation was the least risky
mode while the road became the least costly one (Reniers and Dullaert,
2013).
A practical way to make a network vulnerability analysis is to
identify critical nodes and paths in the network. For this purpose, an
interdiction model can be employed by developing a game-theoretic
model between the enemy and operator. In this game, the enemy wants
to maximize the damage extent while the operators want to cope with
the attack through better path findings. Borrowing the analytical fra-
mework of game theory, the transportation scientists could provide a
context for modeling the interactions among agents (players) in the
domain of transportation engineering and analyzing complex decision
problems among decision makers.
A pioneering study applying the game theory in transportation
science was the study performed by Bell and Cassir (2002). In their
study, route choices of travelers in the presence of uncertainty about
costs were modeled through the mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium of an
n-player, non-cooperative game. This approach was provided to de-
scribe a risk-averse user equilibrium traffic assignment. Bell (2004),
similar to their previous work, employed a non-cooperative non-zero-
sum game for freight transportation modeling.
One of the successful applications of game theory is its application
in vulnerability analysis of transportation networks. Along with em-
ploying the game theoretic approaches in transportation system ana-
lyses, Bell et al. (2008) proposed a game theory approach to the road
network vulnerability analysis. By defining predetermined scenarios
based on attack successes or failures, they determined how to use the
road network to minimize the maximum expected consequences of in-
cidents. A mixed strategy, according to the probability of a worst-case
scenario, was chosen as their optimal strategy. Qiao et al. (2014) used
an optimal model with a game theory approach (using a zero-sum game
and the multi-star solution) and investigated the vulnerability of road
transportation at the level of system performance based on two in-
dicators of time and cost of travel. There were two actors in their
model: operator and enemy. The aim of the operator was to minimize
the total cost of the network by controlling the flow volumes of links
and the aim of the enemy was to maximize the total cost of the network
by destroying a network link. Sarhadi et al. (2015), determined an
optimal strategy to fortify a number of railway terminals using a game
theory approach through adding another level to the levels of players,
i.e. outlining the framework of defender-attacker-defender levels, with
the aim of minimizing the consequences of the attack. This three-level
model was conducted for the first class rail network in the US and the
players were considered as the network owner, network users, and the
enemy.
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Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241
Talarico et al. (2015), proposed a game theory based model to al-
locate security resources within a chemical supply chain. They identi-
fied the critical transportation elements and detected the best terrorist
and operator decisions. Feng et al. (2016) presented a game theory
approach for allocating defense resources to protect multiple chemical
facilities against terrorist attacks. Their approach was implemented on
a real case study consisting eight chemical explosives plants in China.
Rezazadeh et al. (2017) also utilized an approach based on game theory
to schedule security patrolling for a pipeline system. Their method tried
to identify patrolling paths in order to allow the patrolling team to
cover high-risk parts of the network more than low-risk parts.
In this regard, when the game theory is applied to capture the in-
teraction between network users and network failure causes (even un-
tintentional natural causes), one can expect that one of the best prac-
tices of the game theory is to use it in the context of dangerous goods
tranportation. Dadkar et al. (2010) developed a game-theoretic model
of the interactions among government agencies, shippers/carriers, and
terrorists as a framework for the analysis of dangerous goods shipment
on the road network. The model was implemented in the UK. Reilly
et al. (2012) with a similar approach to Dadkar et al. (2010) developed
a game-theoretic framework for routing the transportation of dangerous
goods on the rail network based on the interaction between government
agency, a carrier, and a terrorist, which was applied on the freight rail
network in the continental US. Szeto (2013) employed a Nash game
theory approach to study the integrated routing and scheduling parts of
dangerous goods shipment problem with unknown link incident prob-
abilities. They formulated the problem as a route-based maxmin pro-
blem over the space–time. He expanded the network and decomposed
the route-based problem into a link-based linear problem to be able to
utilize linear programming solution methods. Later on, Szeto et al.
(2017), through a same analytical approach, addressed a dangerous
goods routing and scheduling problem with multiple dangerous goods
classes again when incident probabilities are unknown or inaccurate.
They approached a multi-demon game theory framework that gave
profound suggestions to practitioners for the safest shipment of mul-
tiple-dangerous goods.
According to the literature and because of the unpredictability of
time and place of a terrorist attack, the uncertainty nature of trans-
portation engineering is pronounced more for the security vulnerability
analyses of dangerous goods transportation. Most of the mathematical
models presented in the literature only allowed the operator to identify
critical links based on network performance measures or population
exposure degrees, while the aim of an attack for a terrorist could not be
confined only to population exposure, but also to infrastructure da-
mage. As a result, deploying a mathematical model for simultaneous
coverage of the exposed population and infrastructure and identifying
terrorist decisions is an important scientific gap that has not been stu-
died so far. The lack of application of spatial analysis software to in-
vestigate the consequences of terrorist incidents combined with hazard
modeling software (such as ALOHA) is also a research gap in this do-
main.
The terrorist target can, in addition to damaging the network and
transportation infrastructure, be the number of people affected by the
incident. Most of the events such as the 2017 attack to a concert venue
in Manchester, the November 2015 attack on a football stadium in
France, the shooting at a concert in the US in 2017 or the attack on the
building of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran in 2017 targeted
only people.
The aim of the approach proposed in this study is to guide to know
the level of vulnerability of each route and making appropriate deci-
sions to reduce the likelihood and consequences of terrorist incidents in
the rail transportation of dangerous goods. In this study, the vulner-
ability of the dangerous goods transportation is investigated using a
quantitative approach based on the geographic information system
(GIS) and finally, routing of chlorine transportation is performed using
the game theory approach.
M. Khanmohamadi et al.
Fig. 2. Study framework for this paper.
In Section 2, the suggested approach of this paper is described,
which includes explanations of how to perform security spatial analysis
using the ALOHA and ArcGIS software, as well as the mathematical
modeling based on a zero-sum game for the transportation of dangerous
goods. In Section 3, chlorine transportation by rail in the Texas-Illinois
corridor of the US is assessed, which is an important corridor for the
transportation of chlorine in the US. Finally, in Section 4, terminates
the paper with final considerations and open questions.
2. Proposed approach
According to the literature, the combination of mathematical
modeling and spatial analysis software for routing rail transportation of
dangerous goods with the aim of reducing security vulnerabilities has
not been carried out so far. The study framework of this research, as
shown in Fig. 2, obtains the consequences of the incident in each link
and in each route. In this study, the dangerous goods, origins and
destinations, links, and possible routes are considered as basic
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Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241
information. With the possession of information about weather condi-
tion and shipment information (tankers), the severity of incidents is
estimated by the simulation software (ALOHA).
In the second step, the population and infrastructure layers are
combined with threat zone layers in the ArcGIS (note that the threat
zone layers are extracted from ALOHA). Afterwards, affected (exposed)
population and infrastructure for each link are calculated.
In the third step, a two-objective model is proposed based on the
game theory and a zero-sum game is launched to obtain the optimal
operator and terrorist strategies. In Step 4, the Epsilon constraint
method is used to obtain a set of efficient solutions. In the fifth step,
after the model was solved, for the operator, the distribution of the
probability of the route selection is derived, and for the terrorist, the
distribution of the probability of link selections is calculated. Because
the proposed model is based on a non-cooperative zero-sum game, the
value of the game is the same for the two players.
M. Khanmohamadi et al.
2.1. Estimate the consequences
Unlike natural disasters and human and technical errors that can be
predicted by information and statistics, the nature of sabotage attacks is
in such a way that is not predictable or are very hard to predict (Bell,
2000; Bell et al., 2008). Therefore, the two following methods can be
used to calculate the vulnerability indexes: (1) the product of the
probability of success of the attack and the consequences of the in-
cident, or (2) direct estimation of missing expected values when the
attack is very difficult to succeed (i.e. an attack owns a very small
probability of success) (Morgeson et al., 2011).
The approach of this study is based on the second method. We need
to aware of the characteristics and volume of material, infrastructure,
weather and environmental conditions, and population to draw the
expected consequences of attacks. After collecting needed information,
the threat zone of the incident is estimated by ALOHA, and then, by
using ArcGIS, the extent of the population and infrastructure that af-
fected by the attack will be derived.
2.1.1. Estimate the threat zone in ALOHA
The first step in determining the consequences of a terrorist attack is
to estimate the severity. Some software can only investigate a specific
incident such as fire, explosion, or release of toxic substances. Some
other multifunctional software is used to investigate and model a
combination of different and unpredictable events. Some other ad-
vanced software can also carry out risk assessment calculations, along
with an estimate of potential outcomes, as well as the possible im-
plications and consequences of an incident. The most prominent soft-
ware in this field is ALOHA and Phast. Both software has similarities.
ALOHA has different capabilities such as predicting the release of toxic
substances in the atmosphere over time and geographic locations.
Hence, to determine the threat zones in this study, ALOHA software is
selected.
The ALOHA dispersion model was developed by the Emergency
Response Division (ERD) of National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) in
cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the US.
This software has been created to predict the aftermath of chemical
materials incidents. ALOHA uses warning levels to display the influence
of diffusion of toxins, fire, and explosives human lives. So far, several
studies have been conducted regarding the safety of transportation of
dangerous goods using this software (Bagheri et al., 2014; Lozano et al.,
2010).
The determination of the threat zones for each substance depends
on the level of concerns (LOC) defined by the user. To determine this
level, there are different standards such as AEGL and IDLH (NOAA-
Office-of-Response-and-Restoration, 2018). As shown in Fig. 3, the
software output includes a three-level color spectrum: red (AEGL-3),
orange (AEGL-2), and yellow (AEGL-1). In the red layer, most people
will be killed. In the orange layer, most people will suffer irreparable
Fig. 3. Example of the threat zone layers in ALOHA.
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Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241
damage. And ultimately, people in the yellow layer will be mildly da-
maged. We extract the results of the analysis from ALOHA. From the
layers obtained (i.e. red, orange, and yellow), we only pick the red layer
(AEGL-3 layer). The spatial information of the red area will be entered
into the ArcGIS software. Population and infrastructure data are also
available in the ArcGIS data layers. Hence, the exposure of the popu-
lation and infrastructure affected by the attack is determined. That is to
say, the output of the ALOHA is used by the ArcGIS to estimate the
population and infrastructure affected by the incident cases of dan-
gerous goods transportation.
In the event of an accident for a dangerous goods train, the area to
the center of the train is affected by the accident. But, a train is not a
fixed object. It is moving along its route; therefore, this affected area is
moving along the route of the train. In ArcGIS, the threat zones in each
rail link are implemented by the buffer tool, and with the intersect tool,
those infrastructures and population affected along the route of the
train are determined.
2.2. Bi-objective game
Game theory is a set of analytical tools that analyse the interaction
between decision makers. It is based on two assumptions of decision-
makers rationality and the strategic nature of the decisions (Jehle,
2001), and assumed that each player demands the highest possible
payoff for himself. Thus far, several transportation studies have em-
ployed the game theory in their analytical contexts (Bell, 2000, 2004;
Bell et al., 2008; Bell and Cassir, 2002).
A security vulnerability analysis tends to determine the likelihood of
threats, for example, malicious attacks on transportation networks. The
probabilistic nature of such threats makes the analyst unable to estab-
lish deterministic or exact methodological approaches. A smart terrorist
chooses targets based on the defensive capabilities of a defender and his
possible reaction. Facing and overcoming him requires tailor-made
approaches while naïve measures like only increasing the security level
of a target may increase the likelihood of attacking other targets. That is
why the game theory is proposed in several studies as a powerful and
capable approach to trace terrorists in attacking strategic transportation
commodities (Bier et al., 2009).
Game theory can be divided into cooperative and non-cooperative
games, accompanying complete or incomplete information by players.
A cooperative (or coalitional) games is a game where the interests of the
players are not necessarily opposite and they may obtain collective
payoffs through joint actions that they take. However, non-cooperative
games focus on developing a framework of interrelationships which
tries to predict players' individual strategies and payoffs and to discover
the Nash equilibria. In this case, players’ decisions may be accompanied
by opposite payoffs and the game environment is competitive than
cooperative. Now when the interests of the players are opposite, a non-
cooperative zero-sum game is devised. A zero-sum game is a mathe-
matical model represents the interaction of players in conflicting si-
tuations. In this game, player's gain or loss of utility is balanced by the
losses or gains of the utility of the other participants, and the value of
total benefits and losses of the game is zero (Neumann, 1928).
The non-cooperative zero-sum game has been utilized in several
studies in transportation science via four different contexts where the
players are (a) network defender and attacker, (b) travelers only, (c)
transportation authorities, and (d) travelers and transportation autho-
rities (Hollander and Prashker, 2006). In the defender-attacker game,
there is a cost-maximization objective that one player (the terrorist)
tries to attain and a cost-minimization objective that another player
(the operator) wishes to satisfy (i.e. objective functions of the players
are equal and opposite of each other). In this paper, the number of
population and infrastructure affected by a terrorist attack is a gain for
the terrorist and a loss for the operator. The intension of the terrorist is
to maximize the extent of affected population and infrastructure while
the operator’s intension is limit or prevent it. As a result, the zero-sum
M. Khanmohamadi et al.
game approach is chosen for this study.
Matrix C is the two-player zero-sum game matrix. The operator's
strategy is determined by selecting row i and simultaneously the ter-
rorist’s strategy by selecting column j. Thus, the operator will suffer the
consequences of C(i,j), and the terrorist will also impose these con-
sequences on the operator. The operator’s goal is to minimize the
maximum consequences and the terrorist’s goal is to maximize the
minimum consequences. The term p in Eq. 1 is the probability of the
route selection by the operator, and the term q in this equation is the
probability of target selection for an attack by the terrorist.
minpmax qC (p,q) = max qminp C (p,q) = v (1)
s.t. ∑ pi = 1
i m
∑ qj = 1
j n
In order to solve the model, it can be written as Eqs. (2) and (3) for
the first and second players, respectively, in the form of a linear pro-
gramming model (Neumann, 1928):
m above, is to accurately recognize the differences between various in-
∑ Cij pi∗ −v ⩽ 0 for j = 1,...,n
i=1 (2)
n different infrastructures could be affected in addition to the population
∑ Cij qj∗−v ⩾ 0 for i = 1,...,m
j=1 (3)
where p∗ and q∗ are optimal strategies for the two players and v is the
value of the game, which is the expected payoff to the player at the
equilibrium point. At the equilibrium state, the players do not better off
by choosing another action. This means that, at the optimal strategy by
the players, they cannot improve their choices by adopting different
strategies.
The minimum-maximum game of the two players, above, is a class
of games for which finding equilibria is computable in polynomial time,
using linear programming (Aumann et al., 1995). Furthermore, the lack
of difference between the payoffs of the player from the perspective of
who begins the game first (in a simultaneous game or a sequential
game) is an important matter in the theory of minimax games of van
Newman (Neumann, 1928).
Eq. (1) depicts a one-goal game model. Such a model is employed
when players have only one goal. In this study, for a situation where the
operator decides to simultaneously reduce the risk of people exposure
and infrastructure, a two-goal model based on the non-cooperative
zero-sum game is presented. The purpose of this model is to identify
operator and terrorist strategies depending on the level of population
and infrastructure exposure. The initial assumption of this study is that
the operator and terrorist follow a two-player zero-sum game approach.
The operator’s goal is to minimize the maximum consequences of a
terrorist attack on the population and infrastructure affected by a ter-
rorist attack, and the terrorist’s goal is to maximize the minimum of
these consequences drawn from the coping strategies of the operator.
Suppose that for every origin-destination (OD) pair, there are m
routes that contain n links connecting the OD. The operator strategy is
to select one route out of m for the transportation of the dangerous
goods and the terrorist’s strategy is to select one link out of n to attack
the train carrying the dangerous goods. It is assumed that the operator
and terrorist are completely informed of the network structure and
performance. The game is considered as a mixed strategy game. The
choice of strategies for the player is a probabilistic choice. That is, for
each choice of a player, there is a probability that another player is
aware of the probability magnitude but is not aware of the final deci-
sion. Such a random selection strategy reduces the ability of the players
to predict the opponent game player. If the terrorist wants to eventually
attack a link, from the viewpoint of the operator, he randomly selects a
link. But the operator may make the prediction more accurate through
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Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241
finding the links where attack to them cause higher consequences and
affects more population and infrastructure.
For modeling such an interaction among players, a multi-objective
model (Eq. (4)) is presented so that it is possible to obtain optimal
strategies for both (operator and terrorist’s) goals at the same time to be
able to know the level of priority of each goal. For the operator, Eq. (4)
is with the aim of reducing the security vulnerability of the affected
population and infrastructure. p∗ and q∗ are optimal strategies for the
two players. Matrices C (in object F1) and V (in object F2) are, respec-
tively, the matrices of the affected population and infrastructure. This
model can be solved through various methods; for the case study of the
present study, Epsilon constraint and weighting methods (Zopounidis
and Pardalos, 2010) are employed to solve the model.
F1: minp (max q ( ∑ pi Cij qj )) F2: minp (max q ( ∑ pi Vij qj )) s. t . ∑ pi
ij ij i=1
= 1 ∑ qj = 1
j=1 (4)
The important point in the preparation of infrastructure matrix,
frastructures from the viewpoint of the operator. Because of the con-
sequences of a terrorist attack on a train carrying dangerous goods,
around the incident area. The operator should ascribe the relative im-
portance of transportation infrastructure relative to each other with
respect to the land use and activities of them in order to get the correct
matrix for infrastructure in Eq. (4).
2.3. Solution method
In multi-objective problems, a unique optimal solution cannot be
achieved; on the other hand, due to the contradiction among goals,
there is no answer that is simultaneously optimal with respect to all the
goals. Therefore, the desirable result can only be obtained as a series of
near-optimal solutions. The range of solutions in a multi-objective
problem is named Pareto set or Pareto frontier. Most multi-objective
optimization algorithms employ the concept of domination in order to
draw the Pareto optimal front. In this study, because of the linearity of
the equations and the polynomial equation solution approach, the
Epsilon constraint method (Zopounidis and Pardalos, 2010) is utilized
to get the results.
According to Eq. (5), in Epsilon constraint method, we solve all
problem functions by transferring all objective functions, except one of
them, into constraints. After obtaining optimal solutions, the decision
maker can choose one of them according to the level of the desirability
of each goal (Mavrotas, 2009). The points in the Pareto frontier are the
points that have the same priority for the decision, and the final solu-
tion can be easily constructed with the ε-constraint method (Bérubé
et al., 2009).
minF1 (x ) s. t . F2 (x ) ⩽ ε2 ⋮Fn (x ) ⩽ εn x ∈ X (5)
3. Case study
The US rail network is about 250,000 km and is the world’s largest
rail network that 80% of this network is freight lines. The network
mainly operated by private organizations. The US railways throughout
the country are covered by various railroad companies. Texas is one of
the largest manufacturers of chlorine in the US. The Texas-Illinois
corridor is one of the key corridors for the transportation of chemicals
in the US, with nearly 795 thousand tons of basic chemicals and 203
thousand tons of chemical products shipped in 2015 (Center-for-
Transportation-Analysis, 2017).
M. Khanmohamadi et al. Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241

3.1. Chlorine transportation Table 1

Chlorine characteristics (Cameo-Chemicals, 2018).
Every year about 1.7 million rail cars of dangerous goods are 7782–50-5 1017 Poison Gas Oxidizer Corrosive Diamond
shipped by rail routes in the US, from which 75,000 wagons is dedi-
cated to the shipment of Toxic Inhalation Hazard (TIH) chemicals CAS number UN/NA number DOT hazard label
(Association-of-American-Railroads, 2009). TIH materials are also
among substances that are of significant importance in industry and the
industrial economy; on the other hand since they simply disseminate to
the air after release with huge side effects on people health, perhaps
these materials are the most dangerous substances (Branscomb et al.,
2010). The release of TIH chemicals to air can be one of the main ob-
jectives of terrorists’ operations. The obvious example is the use of
chlorine in Iraq war by terrorist groups. Chlorine and ammonia com-
pose about 70% of rail freight of TIH materials in the US (Hartong et al.,
2007). In this study, rail transportation of chlorine within the Texas-
Illinois corridor, which is one of the major chlorine transportation
routes, is studied.
The chlorine industrial production in the US comprises more than
15 million tons per year. Chlorine is produced in few states that must be
transferred throughout the US on high volume. In 2007, some regions in
the south of the US especially Texas and Louisiana had the highest le-
vels of chlorine production (Branscomb et al., 2010). As a result, storing
and transporting such large volumes nearby towns and urban centers as
well as around critical infrastructure and vulnerable areas can be a
tempting target for terrorist attacks. The study conducted at the Army
Research Laboratory showed that in the worst case scenario, a terrorist
attack to wagons containing chlorine in a densely populated area causes
the death of 100 people per second and about 100 thousand of death in Fig. 4. Threat zone for Oklahoma in ALOHA.
half an hour (Barrett, 2009; Maty, 2017). The chlorine characteristics
are briefly provided in Table 1. As it is clear from the risk diamond in
this table, this material is extremely harmful to human health. Table 2
Threat zone for rail links in each state.
Threat zone (square. 7.5 8.2 8.9 8.8 8.6 8.7 9.1 8.3 8.6 7.8 9.6
3.2. Consequences of an incident
km)

In this study, the routing is conducted for a train containing five cars
of the type DOT-111, each of them has a capacity of 30,000 gallons of
chlorine. The technical characteristics of the tankers can be found in the
Association of American Railroads (AAR) report (c.f. Maty, 2017).
Firstly, using the ALOHA simulation software, we simulated an in-
cident based on the weather condition of the state. To determine the
range of areas affected by the incident, Acute Exposure Guideline Levels
(AEGLs) (EPA, 2017) is employed. AEGLs for hazardous chemicals
contains a detailed and comprehensive methodology for developing
inhalation exposure guideline levels for toxic substances. It helps to
respond to emergency situations, including chemical spills or other
catastrophic events where the public are exposed to the release of a
hazardous substance to the air. Because we wanted to consider the
worst case scenario, we only consider the affected distance in the third
layer of AEGL (red1 area in Fig. 3), where, according to the guideline,
all people are likely to be killed in this layer. Given that the response
time of the incident is taken 30 min, as a result, AEGLs level is de-
termined about 28 ppm in the third layer for 30 min (EPA, 2017).
A total of 33 links comprising 41 different routes are identified in
the study area. After extracting the threat zone for the AEGL-3 level
from the ALOHA software for an attack scenario to transportation links,
the links’ threat zones are defined in ArcGIS10.4.1 using the buffer and
intersect tool. Then, the population and infrastructures affected due to
the attack are determined. For example, Fig. 4 shows the threat zone
obtained in the ALOHA for the links in the state of Oklahoma, with a
radius equal to 8.3 km that repeated along the links.
This is the radius of the threat zone calculated by ALOHA for
Oklahoma; however, for the same train with different geographic and
1
For interpretation of color in Fig. 3, the reader is referred to the web version of this
article.
State IL IN KY MO KS TN MS OK AR LA TX
climatic conditions, the radius of threat zone varies. All the calculated
radii of threat zones by the ALOHA software are shown in Table 2. The
largest and smallest threat zones are in Texas with 9.6 km radius and in
Illinois with 7.5 km radius, respectively.
Fig. 5 shows the routes in the ArcGIS environment with the threat
zone shown by dark circles continued along the route. The routes
consist of 33 links. The infrastructure and population layers used in this
study are based on US 2010 data. These layers include population and
transportation infrastructures; religious, commercial, and government
places; airports; parks; healthcare centers; museums; and educational
and sports places.
3.3. Bi-objective game
In the multi-objective games proposed in this paper, the operator
performs routing of dangerous goods aimed at reducing the con-
sequences of population and infrastructure exposure level. As shown in
Eq. (4), the operator wants to reduce the consequences of a terrorist
attack on the population and the infrastructure according to their
priority levels and terrorists also want to cause the maximum damage
based on the priority level of population consequences to the infra-
structure consequences. The Epsilon constraint method is used to solve
the above bi-objective model.
To determine the infrastructure priorities relative to each other, the
annual report of infrastructure protection budget is used. The US gov-
ernment annually allocates funding to protect infrastructure and people
(c.f. US annual budget (Office-of-Management-and-Budget, 2016)). The

236
M. Khanmohamadi et al. Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241

Fig. 5. Threat zone for routes between Texas – Illinois in ArcGIS.

Fig. 6. Game value with Epsilon constraint method for population and infrastructure.

data on this budget is used to determine the infrastructure priorities.
The type of infrastructure, in fact, is one of the classes like religious
places, commercial centers etc., mentioned previously. When we ex-
tract the budget for protecting infrastructure from the US annual budget
report, with the total number of infrastructure in the range of the links’
threat zones (in the ArcGIS software) and by dividing the number of
infrastructures within the threat zone of each link by the total number
of infrastructure exposed within the study area, we can obtain an in-
dicator for the security vulnerability analysis.
Suppose, for example, that the number of educational infra-
structures within the threat zone of link 14 is 10 (i.e. for the trans-
portation of chlorine over the entire length of link 14, there are 10

237
M. Khanmohamadi et al.
Fig. 7. Probability distribution of route selection for the operator.
educational infrastructures at risk). Now suppose, for example, we have
1000 educational infrastructures around all the threat zones of the
whole study area of the chlorine transportation. Dividing 10 by 1000
(equal to 0.01) and multiplying 0.01 by the annual security budget
assigned to educational infrastructures, we derive a link specific in-
dicator. If we do the same for the rest of infrastructure types in the
threat zones of the transportation of chlorine along link 14, then finally,
we have a synthesized index of the importance of attack to link 14 with
respect to the all the infrastructures located within the threat zone
around this link. This amount is, in fact, the payoff of the terrorist’s
decision to attack the link and the operator’s decision payoff to put this
link on the route transporting chlorine.
Of course, all mentioned above is at the level of exposure of infra-
structures. The problem is according to Eq. (4) have two objectives that
include population exposure other than the infrastructure exposure.
The Epsilon constraint method is used to solve the bi-objective model.
After running the model, the game value is obtained according to Fig. 6.
According to Eq. (5), we consider the second objective (exposure of
infrastructure) as the constraint in the Epsilon constraint method. That
is, in our game model with the Epsilon constraint approach, the
Fig. 8. The probability distribution of links selection for terrorist.
238
Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241
objective function encompasses the damage to the population and the
constraint incorporates the damage to the infrastructure. The popula-
tion ranges from 1 million to 1.6 million according to the changes to the
extent of damage to infrastructures. The values on the horizontal axis of
Fig. 6 are the values of epsilons (for example, ‘80’ on the horizontal axis
mentions that the amount of infrastructure exposure degree should not
exceed 80 (8 million $)). By solving the problem with this constraint
(i.e. 80 amount), the population affected by the attack is 1.5 million
people. It should be mentioned that by increasing the extent of damage
to infrastructure, the degree of damage to the population can be re-
duced or vice versa, yet this is not a linear relationship, as also depicted
in Fig. 6.
As shown in Fig. 6, the operator’s decision to pay attention to the
infrastructure exposure, for values less than 11.5 million $ (on the
horizontal axis), could not have a significant impact on the size of the
population affected by the attack. In comparison to this game value, on
the other hand, if the operator prefers the value of the game equal to
8.5 million $ of the infrastructure damage, the result of the game’s
value for the target population would increase to 1.5 million people,
resulting in an increase of 500,000 people hurt because of the attack.
M. Khanmohamadi et al. Safety Science 110 (2018) 230–241

Fig. 9. Route no. 1 – Texas to Illinois.

The minimum game value for population objective is 992,977 person Table 3
(11.5 million $ for infrastructure). As mentioned above, from this point, Critical links ranked by different indicators.
according to Fig. 6, if the operator deems to increase the value of the Indicator Rank
game in favor of the infrastructure damages, the value of the game will
not change in terms of the population exposure. Link 27 Link 30 Link 31 Link33
Figs. 7 and 8 show, respectively, the probability distribution of
Population 2 3 4 1
route selection by the operator and the probability distribution of link Transportation 1 2 4 3
selection by the terrorist according to different priorities. ‘Different Religion 8 12 28–33 28–33
priorities’ means that how we assign to ‘infrastructure damage’ and Commercial 3 10 17 4
‘population hurt’ relative importance when solving the bi-objective Government 24–33 24–33 24–33 24–33
Airport 9 3 30 6
problem (Eq. (4)).
Park 1 5 8 4
Since the damage to infrastructure is used as the constraint in the bi- Healthcare 7 4 3 1
objective Epsilon constraint method, ‘E’ in Figs. 7 and 8 is, in fact, the Museum 2 8 27 4
upper level of the infrastructure costs (i.e. epsilon in Eq. (5)). For ex- Education 3 11 13 4
ample, E1 in Fig. 7 is a value equal to 7.8 billion $ meaning that the Sport 6 4 12 2

damage extent to infrastructure should not exceed this amount. The

horizontal axis of Fig. 7 shows 41 routes for carrying dangerous goods
by the operator. The vertical axis is the probability of selecting any
route by the operator (which is a function of the values of the epsilon
(12 values)).
Increasing E from E1 to E12 implies reducing the importance of
infrastructure in favor of population, which results in an increase in the
game value for the infrastructure exposure and a decrease in the game
value for the population exposure, as also shown in Fig. 6. As can be
seen in Fig. 7, the probability of choosing the transportation routes
would change with the changes of the relative importance of population
and infrastructure damage. Route 1 gets a high probability value for
being selected by the operator. Some other routes, such as routes 40 and
41, are selected in only a few epsilon values.
The probability values of links (targeted by the terrorist) are sig-
nificantly different from the routes probability values (chosen by the
operator). According to Fig. 8, links 27, 30, 31, and 33 are the most
desirable objects for the terrorist’s attacks, and they are supposed to be
the critical links. As shown in Fig. 8, except for link 4 in E4, link 11 in
Fig. 10. Link 31 in Illinois. E2, and link 17 in E8, only links 27, 30, 31, and 33 are desirable for the

239
M. Khanmohamadi et al.
terrorist. These four links are in Illinois and all the routes terminated to
Illinois pass through one of them.
Among the four critical links 27, 31, 33, and 34, link 31 gets the
lowest weight from the perspective of the terrorist (as a potential target
object). But, since the terrorist’s goal is to guarantee the maximum of
minimum damage, by reducing the importance of infrastructure in
favor of population, this link would be more highlighted to be attacked.
Fig. 9 shows route no. 1 from Texas to Illinois and Fig. 10 depicts link
31 in Illinois.
For the critical links 27, 31, 33, and 34, the ranks in comparison to
all the links in the study area with respect to the population and in-
frastructure exposures are listed in Table 3. As it is observed, these four
critical links get the highest ranks in terms of population and infra-
structure exposure except for the ‘government infrastructure.’
4. Conclusion
This paper presents a new approach for the use of a hazard modeling
software (ALOHA) and a spatial analysis software (ArcGIS), combined
with the game theory, for decision making under uncertainty and
evaluating terrorist threats of attacking trains carrying dangerous
goods. Previous studies have only considered affected population or
cost as the inputs of each player in the game theory, while this study
considered affected population and infrastructure simultaneously by a
two-objective model. At the end, an operator could use this approach to
forecast terrorist decision and to identify the critical links.
To obtain the severity of a terrorist’s attack to the chlorine trans-
portation on the rail corridor from Texas to Illinois, ALOHA software
was used to obtain the threat zone of the event, and then, the ArcGIS
software gave the extent of exposure to the population and infra-
structures. A bi-objective game theoretic model was solved through the
Epsilon constraint method. To determine the differences of infra-
structures relative to each other, the report of the US annual budget and
the allocation of funds to different departments were used. After run-
ning the model, critical links were determined for various terrorist
purposes according to the probability distribution of route selection,
given different objectives of the operator.
There are several key areas for the extension of this research. First,
extending this approach to a network with different origins and desti-
nations containing different commodities; second, the expansion of the
game to a three-level game model and taking into account the level of
protection of links by a third player; finally, developing a model taking
into account the objectives of reducing the risk due to natural hazards.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the
online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.04.026.
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