Model for the growth of the World Airline Network

TL;DR

This paper introduces a probabilistic model for the growth of transport networks, specifically the World Airline Network, balancing node popularity and physical distance, and finds that the model closely matches real network properties at a specific parameter value.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel probabilistic growth model for airline networks that incorporates both node popularity and physical distance, aligning well with empirical data.

Findings

Model closely matches the degree distribution of the WAN

Optimal parameter value is approximately 2

Model explains the node-node correlation in the WAN

Abstract

We propose a probabilistic growth model for transport networks which employs a balance between popularity of nodes and the physical distance between nodes. By comparing the degree of each node in the model network and the WAN, we observe that the difference between the two is minimized for $\alpha\approx 2$. Interestingly, this is the value obtained for the node-node correlation function in the WAN. This suggests that our model explains quite well the growth of airline networks.