Publicness and Diversified Response Strategies for Extreme Weather Events: Evidence from U.S. Public Transit Agencies

• In Event: Disaster Responses in the US States

Abstract

In the face of extreme weather events, protecting public safety remains a core responsibility of public transit agencies, which are often recognized as “second-circle responders” for their role in providing mobility support during evacuation and recovery efforts (Comfort, 2002; Hambridge et al., 2017; APTA, 2024). Prior studies examining the antecedents of public transit agencies’ response strategies to extreme weather emphasize climate severity and intraorganizational preconditions, such as organizational risk perception, capacity, structure. However, they oversimplify the complexity of response strategies and underemphasize transit agencies’ publicness–organizational commitment to public values. In contrast, this study asks two research questions: (1) How can we explain the diverse set of different response strategies? (2) How does publicness in conjunction with other contextual factors influence agencies’ strategic choices?

Contingency theory posits that organizations align their structures with environmental uncertainty to improve performance (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Lawrence, 2000). In mitigating varying impacts of extreme weather, public transit agencies employ diverse approaches, including shutdowns, buffering, risk transfer, and risk reduction. We propose a framework clustering these agencies into three strategic archetypes: passive responder, resilient defender, and proactive planner. Passive responders execute minimal, immediate responses post-event to recover. Resilient defenders prepare in advance to enhance organizational resilience and withstand impacts. Proactive planners strategically and proactively assess risks and mitigate future impacts.

Publicness theory posits that regulative, normative, and cultural pressures to uphold public values shape organizational strategic decisions and performance aimed at advancing the public interest (Moulton, 2009). One indicator of publicness is the percentage of government funding on agency’s revenue. Agency relying on more government fundings is more likely to follow government restrictions and guidelines on serving community. For example, the Oregon Department of Transportation received over $437 million from federal emergency relief to ensure public transportation safety and accessibility (Pew, 2024).

Drawing from contingency theory and publicness theory, we specifically propose that:

Proposition 1: Public transit agencies will cluster into three strategic archetypes in their response to extreme weather events: passive responder, resilient defender, and proactive planner, based on their response strategies.

Proposition 2: The influence of publicness on an agency’s strategic response archetypes is contingent on its configuration with other organizational attributes and the severity of extreme weather events it faces.

We empirically test these propositions using a unique longitudinal dataset combining three waves of survey data (2016, 2019, and 2023) from over 1,000 U.S. public transit agencies with National Transit Database data. Initially, we apply latent profile analysis to identify distinct agency clusters (responder, defender, planner). Subsequently, we employ qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to explore how configurations involving publicness, organizational attributes, and exposure to extreme weather shape agencies’ response strategies clusters.

By emphasizing publicness and strategic diversification, we theoretically highlight that extreme weather response strategies are heterogeneous and contingent on publicness-organization-climate interface. Practically, our study assist policymakers and public managers in effectively designing their response strategies through aligning their values commitment and organizational capacities based on the climate-related challenges, thereby stabilizing safe, accessible, and effective public transportation.

Author

• Tipeng Chen, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author