A multilayer perspective for the analysis of urban transportation systems

TL;DR

This paper models urban transportation as a multiplex network, analyzing its structure and vulnerabilities across nine European cities, and demonstrates how different perspectives and data can inform improvements in urban mobility systems.

Contribution

It introduces a multiplex network model for urban transportation systems and compares different analytical perspectives to identify vulnerabilities and potential enhancements.

Findings

Different city structures reveal unique vulnerabilities.

Grouping lines by mode offers new insights into network robustness.

Incorporating service data enables realistic mobility modeling.

Abstract

Public urban mobility systems are composed by several transportation modes connected together. Most studies in urban mobility and planning often ignore the multi-layer nature of transportation systems considering only aggregated versions of this complex scenario. In this work we present a model for the representation of the transportation system of an entire city as a multiplex network. Using two different perspectives, one in which each line is a layer and one in which lines of the same transportation mode are grouped together, we study the interconnected structure of 9 different cities in Europe raging from small towns to mega-cities like London and Berlin highlighting their vulnerabilities and possible improvements. Finally, for the city of Zaragoza in Spain, we also consider data about service schedule and waiting times, which allow us to create a simple yet realistic model for urban mobility able to reproduce real-world facts and to test for network improvements.