Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 7
8 CAPTA Final Report
Overview of the CAPTA Methodology
The CAPTA methodology provides a key advance in surface transportation risk assessment.
CAPTA provides users with a capital planning and budgeting tool, used as a strategic point of
departure for resource allocation decisions. It is intended as the first step undertaken by an
agency in formulating risk allocation decisions. CAPTA enables an executive to base allocation
decisions on objective data about assets and match that data to a consequence threshold set by the
agency. This capability not only guides budgeting decisions, but can also direct decision makers
toward assets and asset classes that merit further attention or study.
CAPTA is intended for use by senior managers whose jurisdiction extends over multiple
modes of transportation, multiple asset classes, and many individual assets. This methodology
provides a means for moving across transportation assets to address system vulnerabilities that
could result in significant losses given the threats and hazards of greatest concern. These losses,
or consequences, could be casualties, loss of property, failure to provide services to the public
successfully, or loss of public confidence in the use of existing infrastructure and facilities. These
four areas of loss all represent risk to the transportation system. The level of risk that is of con-
cern to the transportation owner/operator is explicitly brought forward through this process.
CAPTA provides a transparent means of ranking assets relative to one another, avoiding reliance
on subjective judgments wherever possible.
CAPTA is consequence driven. This methodology begins by asking the transportation
owner/operator to set an initial consequence "threshold," indicated by the level of losses at which
additional resources would likely be required. Subsequent analysis is completed iteratively by
identifying (1) assets where losses would exceed the consequence threshold and (2) the coun-
termeasures that could avoid or reduce the consequences. Users may choose to change the
consequence threshold to focus resources on the highest consequence assets or vary thresholds
among transportation modes to reflect variations in authority or responsibility for different
modes or asset classes. This approach is ideally suited to the strategic, high-level planning under-
taken by an executive with budgetary discretion. The executive faced with deciding where and
how to spend funds can arrive very quickly at the most logical choices based on agency priorities
and the characteristics of the assets.
The process begins with the question of "What adverse consequences do I consider beyond
our ability to handle through our normal operations and capital investments?" and then asks the
user to indicate the types of threats and hazards of concern that might cause such losses. The user
is not, however, expected to know all of the characteristics of potential threats and hazards (e.g.,
severity, frequency, capability, intent, and motivation).
A consequence-based approach to capital allocation diverges from traditional risk management
strategies in that it does not attempt to assess the likelihood of an event explicitly. In essence, the
consequence-based approach assumes that if a decision maker perceives an event to be possible,
and if the consequences are sufficiently severe, the decision maker must consider alternatives for
avoiding or minimizing consequences should the event take place. The consequence-based
approach is strategic, beginning with how an asset has been adversely affected regardless of why
or how it became disabled.
CAPTool allows senior managers to move through multiple iterations quickly by setting con-
sequence thresholds for losses at levels that reflect levels of responsibility and available resources.
The consequence threshold may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and among individual
managers, depending on individual tolerance. Reasonable ranges of consequences are provided
to guide the user in each of the following four consequence areas:
· Potentially exposed population
· Property loss
