Simulating Critical Infrastructure Cascading Failure

The reliance on critical infrastructures, which are heavily interconnected, is one of society´s greatest weaknesses. An individual failure has the potential to have a huge impact on society and affect other infrastructures. Predicting the effects of a cascading failure is a challenge. In this paper, a simulation of a virtual city is presented in order to visualise the effects of a cascading failure. The simulation is used to assess the resulting effect of a telecommunications failure. Data extracted from the simulation is used to evaluate the impact of the failure on the emergency services provision. Behaviour analysis techniques are used to demonstrate how a failure in one infrastructure can impact another and present a way for organisations to plan for its effects.