Advancing multi-hazard resilience and urban integration: A quantitative framework for high-speed rail stations

Abstract

With rapid urbanization and increasing extreme weather events, high-speed rail (HSR) stations must not only function as efficient transport nodes but also exhibit robust multi-disaster resilience and seamless integration with their urban surroundings. This study developed two hierarchical evaluation frameworks that assess (1) Resilience, which comprises a “basic” category and eight disaster-specific categories (earthquake, fire, strong winds, flooding, drought, heatwave, pollution, public health); (2) Station-city integration across urban, environmental, and social dimensions. We applied the frameworks to eight representative HSR stations in China's Yangtze River Delta via on-site audits, expert AHP weighting, and risk-based scoring. Composite scores underwent Spearman's rank correlation to identify key integration–resilience linkages and K-means clustering to reveal performance archetypes.

Total resilience scores spanned 46.1–64.1 out of 100, with fire, heatwave, and environmental pollution dominating, while earthquake, strong winds, and drought defenses lag. Integration scores ranged 60.9–76.8, driven by pedestrian flow and multimodal accessibility. Notable correlations include public-health resilience with environmental control and multimodal accessibility, and a trade-off between fire resilience and pedestrian flow management. Clustering identified one “high-integration and high-resilience” exemplar (Shanghai South), one “high-integration and moderate-resilience” group (Shanghai, Suzhou Stations), and a mid-range integration and resilience cluster for the remaining stations. Our findings underscore the effectiveness of integrated strategies, such as passive ventilation, daylight optimization, external shading, and multimodal connectivity design in achieving cost-effective, resilient, and well-integrated HSR stations, and offer archetype-specific strategies for future station planning.