Vulnerability Analysis of China's Railway Express Freight Transportation as a Complex Network Problem

Railway transportation is the key part of China's modern transportation system, but the failures of some stations or lines may affect the efficiency of railway transportation. Analyzing the topological characteristics and vulnerability of China's Railway Express Freight Transportation Network (CREFTN) is important for optimizing the network structure and ensuring the stability of operation. The complex network model of CREFTN (CN-CREFTN) is constructed in L-space, then the scale-free and small-world characteristics are analyzed. The vulnerability under the largest-degree attack and the largest-betweenness attack is quantitatively calculated to identify the key stations. The results show that CREFTN has typical small-world and scale-free characteristics at present. The largest-degree attack makes the CREFTN more vulnerable than the largest-betweenness attack. When the proportion of the failed stations with higher degree reaches 18%, the network efficiency decreases by 80%. Therefore, the stations with high degree need to be protected intensively in operation.