Attack Vulnerability of Public Transport Networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates the vulnerability of public transport networks, especially scale-free ones, under targeted attacks, identifying minimal strategies that significantly disrupt these systems.

Contribution

It introduces vulnerability criteria and attack strategies specific to public transport networks, highlighting their susceptibility to targeted node removal.

Findings

Public transport networks can exhibit scale-free properties.

Targeted attacks significantly reduce network connectivity.

Minimal attack strategies can cause high disruption.

Abstract

The behavior of complex networks under attack depends strongly on the specific attack scenario. Of special interest are scale-free networks, which are usually seen as robust under random failure or attack but appear to be especially vulnerable to targeted attacks. In a recent study of public transport networks of 14 major cities of the world we have shown that these networks may exhibit scale-free behaviour [Physica A 380, 585 (2007)]. Our further analysis, subject of this report, focuses on the effects that defunct or removed nodes have on the properties of public transport networks. Simulating different attack strategies we elaborate vulnerability criteria that allow to find minimal strategies with high impact on these systems.