Comparison on Vulnerability of European and Chinese Air Transport Networks under Spatial Hazards

European air transport network(EATN)and Chinese air transport network(CATN),as two important air transport systems in the world,are facing increasingly spatial hazards,such as extreme weathers and natural disasters. In order to reflect and compare impact of spatial hazards on the two networks in a practical way,a new spatial vulnerability model(SVM)is proposed in this paper,which analyzes vulnerability of a network system under spatial hazards from the perspectives of network topology and characteristics of hazards. Before introduction of the SVM,two abstract networks for EATN and CATN are established with a simple topological analysis by traditional vulnerability method. Then,the process to study vulnerability of an air transport network under spatial hazards by SVM is presented. Based on it,a comparative case study on EATN and CATN under two representative spatial hazard scenarios,one with an even spatial distribution,named as spatially uniform hazard,and the other with an uneven spatial distribution that takes rainstorm hazard as an example,is conducted. The simulation results show that both of EATN and CATN are robust to spatially uniform hazard,but vulnerable to rainstorm hazard. In the comparison of the results of the two networks that only stands from the points of network topology and characteristics of hazard without considering certain unequal factors,including airspace openness and flight safety importance in Europe and China,EATN is more vulnerable than CATN under rainstorm hazard. This suggests that when the two networks grow to a similar developed level in future,EATN needs to pay more attention to the impact of rainstorm hazard.

Network Aggregation Process in Multilayer Air Transportation Networks

The air transportation network, one of the common multilayer complex systems, is composed of a collection of individual airlines, and each airline corresponds to a different layer. An important question is then how many airlines are really necessary to represent the optimal structure of a multilayer air transportation system. Here we take the Chinese air transportation network （CATN） as an example to explore the nature of multiplex systems through the procedure of network aggregation. Specifically, we propose a series of structural measures to characterize the CATN from the multilayered to the aggregated network level. We show how these measures evolve during the network aggregation process in which layers are gradually merged together and find that there is an evident structural transition that happened in the aggregated network with nine randomly chosen airlines merged, where the network features and construction cost of this network are almost equivalent to those of the present CATN with twenty-two airlines under this condition. These findings could shed some light on network structure optimization and management of the Chinese air transportation system.

Analyzing the multilevel structure of the European airport network

The multilayered structure of the European airport network（EAN）,composed of connections and flights between European cities,is analyzed through the k-core decomposition of the connections network.This decomposition allows to identify the core,bridge and periphery layers of the EAN.The core layer includes the best-connected cities,which include important business air traffic destinations.The periphery layer includes cities with lesser connections,which serve low populated areas where air travel is an economic alternative.The remaining cities form the bridge of the EAN,including important leisure travel origins and destinations.The multilayered structure of the EAN affects network robustness,as the EAN is more robust to isolation of nodes of the core,than to the isolation of a combination of core and bridge nodes.

Identifying vital edges in Chinese air route network via memetic algorithm

Due to rapid development in the past decade, air transportation system has attracted considerable research attention from diverse communities. While most of the previous studies focused on airline networks, here we systematically explore the robustness of the Chinese air route network, and identify the vital edges which form the backbone of Chinese air transportation system.Specifically, we employ a memetic algorithm to minimize the network robustness after removing certain edges, and hence the solution of this model is the set of vital edges. Counterintuitively,our results show that the most vital edges are not necessarily the edges of the highest topological importance, for which we provide an extensive explanation from the microscope view. Our findings also offer new insights to understanding and optimizing other real-world network systems.