USDOT SBIR Phase I: Geohazard Susceptibility and Risk Forecasting Tool for Railroads (Alaska Railroad Corridor)
Physics-Based Risk Modeling Ranks Geohazards Along a 656-Mile Rail Corridor
Emprise Concepts was awarded a U.S. Department of Transportation Small Business Innovation Research Phase I grant under Topic 25-FR3, Railroad Ground Hazard Mitigation Technology, to establish the feasibility of a real-time geohazard risk forecasting tool for railroads. Railroad geohazards including landslides, rockfall, and debris flows regularly produce losses exceeding $1 million per event, and existing monitoring technology is site-specific and reactive rather than corridor-wide and predictive. Over a seven-month period of performance, Emprise developed and validated a five-module Geohazard Susceptibility Assessment Tool (GSAT) and began development of a Geohazard Risk Forecasting Tool (GRFT), with the Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC) as industry partner. The tools were deployed along the full 656-mile ARRC corridor for landslides, debris flows, and rockfall, producing quantitative risk rankings for every 50-meter track segment.
Project Information
Project Scope:
Phase I feasibility research addressing four research questions: whether a semi-automated geohazard susceptibility assessment tool can locate areas of concern and establish baseline risk; whether publicly available satellite remote sensing has sufficient resolution for remote monitoring; whether forecasted weather data is reliable enough to predict changes in geohazard risk; and whether a risk forecasting tool can predict risk increases in advance of failure.
Unique Features:
Corridor-Wide Deployment Across 656 Miles of Track
Framework Built Entirely on Publicly Available Federal Data
Transparent Physics-Based Models Rather Than Black-Box Machine Learning
Validation Against 47 Historical Slide Zones
Our Services:
Geohazard Susceptibility Modeling
Monte Carlo Kinematic Runout Modeling
Physics-Based Triggering Likelihood Analysis
InSAR Deformation Assessment
Quantitative Risk Assessment, NWP Precipitation Forecast Validation
Corridor Assessed:
656 miles (23,252 track segments of 50 meters each)
Emprise Personnel:
Principal Investigator: Noah Kimmes
Project Director: Jacob Grasmick
Impacts & Benefits
Targeted Inspection of a 656-Mile Corridor: Validated against ARRC’s 47 historical slide zones, the risk rankings achieved an AUC of 0.742 for rockfall and landslide, with the top 5 percent of ranked alignment capturing 41 percent of known hazard zones and the top 10 percent capturing 54.5 percent.
Storm Forcing Quantified: A dry baseline comparison showed that design storms amplify Expected Economic Loss by 12 to 14 times over static conditions for rockfall and landslide, and account for the entire debris flow risk budget.
Mitigation Priorities Confirmed Through 2100: A three-epoch climate evolution analysis under GFDL-CM3 RCP 8.5 found total corridor Expected Economic Loss increasing by 1.25 percent ($1.87 million) over 80 years, with the top 20 highest-risk zones for all three hazard types functionally identical across every epoch.
Weather Forecast Feasibility Established: HRRR-AK was found to provide operationally useful detection accuracy at lead times under 36 hours, and quantile-mapping bias correction improved Critical Success Index by 3 to 10 times for the coarser models at 48 to 72 hours, extending usable detection to multi-day lead times.
Project Gallery
Project Summary
Emprise Concepts performed a USDOT SBIR Phase I feasibility study under Award 6913G625P800056, Topic 25-FR3, evaluating whether a real-time geohazard risk forecasting tool could be built for railroad corridors. The Alaska Railroad Corporation served as industry partner, providing 656 miles of track from the Gulf of Alaska to Fairbanks through terrain subject to extreme precipitation, permafrost degradation, and steep rock slopes. Work ran from August 2025 through March 2026 and covered background research, data procurement, three site visits, selection of five historical failure sites for calibration, satellite data sufficiency assessment, weather forecast validation, and development of the GSAT and GRFT frameworks. Emprise delivered a five-module GSAT deployed corridor-wide for landslides, debris flows, and rockfall, producing Expected Economic Loss, Annual Probability of Derailment, and composite risk scores for each 50-meter track segment. The Phase I research confirmed feasibility and identified real-time weather forecast integration as the highest-value development priority for Phase II.
Project Writeup
Emprise Concepts built the GSAT as five integrated modules. Module 1 maps terrain susceptibility through a geomorphologically constrained Analytical Hierarchy Process weighted separately for each hazard, using pixel-based analysis for landslides and rockfall and watershed-based analysis for debris flows. Module 2 models runout through Monte Carlo simulation with a distinct physics engine per hazard. Module 3 evaluates triggering likelihood using Iverson transient infiltration, Barton-Bandis rock joint mechanics with cumulative thermal fatigue and frost wedging, and Staley post-fire regression, forced by UAF SNAP downscaled climate projections through 2099. Module 4 assimilates corridor-wide SBAS InSAR time-series displacement Sentinel-1 data into a calibrated Kinematic Activity Index that conditions hazard probability as a Bayesian observational factor. Module 5 synthesizes the upstream outputs into Expected Economic Loss and Annual Probability of Derailment per segment through fragility curves, train exposure modeling, and a dual-scenario derailment architecture, with results validated against the historical slide inventory using ROC, Mann-Whitney U, and operational capture rate analysis. A parallel study evaluated four operational NWP models against observed precipitation at five Alaska weather stations across five years of July-through-October records, establishing the detection skill, bias structure, and lead times available to a forecast-driven warning system.
