Attack Vulnerability of Public Transport Networks

Understand

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.