Climate adaptation of transport infrastructure to extreme heat and flooding

Transport infrastructure is exposed to two accelerating climate hazards, extreme heat and flooding. This narrative review synthesizes evidence published between 2013 and 2025 on how roads, railways, bridges and public transport systems are adapted to these hazards. Extreme heat reduces rail capacity through track buckling and speed restrictions and accelerates pavement deterioration, while flooding disrupts road and rail networks and inundates underground transit systems. Assessment relies on multi-hazard fragility, GIS risk mapping and network metrics, increasingly combined with accessibility and equity criteria. Adaptation spans heat-resilient pavements, drainage and barrier upgrades, recovery scheduling and adaptation pathways, although uptake across governments remains uneven. Heat and flood burdens fall more heavily on low-income, older and informal transport users, and adaptation without explicit equity criteria risks widening transport disadvantage. A persistent gap remains between available engineering measures and their routine implementation, and between risk assessment and the social distribution of adaptation benefits.