1 research outputs found
Global efficiency and network structure of urban traffic flows: A percolation-based empirical analysis
Making the connection between the function and structure of networked systems
is one of fundamental issues in complex systems and network science. Urban
traffic flows are related to various problems in cities and can be represented
as a network of local traffic flows. To identify an empirical relation between
the function and network structure of urban traffic flows, we construct a
time-varying traffic flow network of a megacity, Seoul, and analyze its global
efficiency with a percolation-based approach. Comparing the real-world traffic
flow network with its corresponding null-model network having a randomized
structure, we show that the real-world network is less efficient than its
null-model network during rush hour, yet more efficient during non-rush hour.
We observe that in the real-world network, links with the highest betweenness
tend to have lower quality during rush hour compared to links with lower
betweenness, but higher quality during non-rush hour. Since the top betweenness
links tend to traverse the entire network, their congestion has a stronger
impact on the network's global efficiency. Our results suggest that urban
traffic congestion might arise when such backbone links are severely congested
rather than the whole system is slowing down.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure