The transportation network is a lifeline system whose vulnerability to earthquakes is of considerable concern due to its fundamental role for emergency management and the high interdependency with other lifeline systems. Major damage to the transport network can inhibit and significantly delay repairs to the other lifeline systems and affect the resilience response to earthquake events. Nonetheless, because of the complex nature of the phenomena and insufficient data, the implementation of transport network reliability analysis at the country-wide scale within seismic risk analysis has often been oversimplified. Specific objectives of this paper are: a) to review practices and models currently implemented for the assessment of the impact of earthquake events on transport networks; b) to critically discuss the assumptions behind the current practices and the applicability of the available approaches to managing the emergency, response and recovery phases following a seismic event.