Physica A 496 (2018) 72–78

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Physica A
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/physa

Comparison analysis on vulnerability of metro networks

based on complex network
Jianhua Zhang a, *, Shuliang Wang a , Xiaoyuan Wang b
a
School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 221116, China
b
School of Transportation and Vehicle Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, 255000, China

highlights

• The basic characteristics of three metro networks are obtained in this paper.
• Metro networks are vulnerable when they suffer malicious attacks.
• Guangzhou metro network has the best topological structure among them.
• Shanghai metro network has the largest vulnerability among them.

article info a b s t r a c t
Article history: This paper analyzes the networked characteristics of three metro networks, and two
Received 13 July 2017 malicious attacks are employed to investigate the vulnerability of metro networks based
Received in revised form 19 November 2017 on connectivity vulnerability and functionality vulnerability. Meanwhile, the networked
Available online 23 December 2017
characteristics and vulnerability of three metro networks are compared with each other.
Keywords:
The results show that Shanghai metro network has the largest transport capacity, Beijing
Metro networks metro network has the best local connectivity and Guangzhou metro network has the best
Vulnerability global connectivity, moreover Beijing metro network has the best homogeneous degree
Connectivity distribution. Furthermore, we find that metro networks are very vulnerable subjected to
Transport functionality malicious attacks, and Guangzhou metro network has the best topological structure and
reliability among three metro networks. The results indicate that the proposed methodol-
ogy is feasible and effective to investigate the vulnerability and to explore better topological
structure of metro networks.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

With the growth of the population, traffic congestion has become very serious problem and the ground transportations
cannot meet the needs in large cities. In this context, the metro has been paid much attention and becomes the most
effective traffic pattern to relieve traffic congestions of large cities, hence there are more and more cities constructing
metro networks [1]. Moreover, metro is also an efficient traffic pattern, because the metro runs underground according
to the schedule, and there are few traffic congestions. In developed countries, there are many mature experiences about the
operation and management of metro networks in large cities, such as New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo and
Seoul [2–4]. Certainly, the metro has experienced rapid developments in developing countries, such as China, India, Brazil
and Mexico [5,6]. However, it is known that metro network has a high complexity [7,8].

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zhangjianhua@jsnu.edu.cn (J. Zhang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2017.12.094
0378-4371/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 J. Zhang et al. / Physica A 496 (2018) 72–78 73

It is known that Shanghai is the largest and most developed city of China, and there are more than 20 millions of people.
Relying on the World Expo in Shanghai, 2010, Shanghai metro network has been greatly improved, so the traffic congestions
of ground transportations have been significantly relieved. The mileage of Shanghai metro network is more than 420 km
and it is the longest system in passenger route length [1]. Beijing is the capital of China, and there are more than 17 millions
of people. In 2008, 29th Olympic Games was held in Beijing, and the public transportations had been improved, especially
Beijing metro network. The mileage of Beijing metro network is more than 220 km. Guangzhou is the largest city in the south
of China, and the 16th Asian Games was held in Guangzhou, 2010. The government of Guangzhou has paid much attention
to the public transportations, and Guangzhou metro network has been greatly improved and the mileage has exceeded 180
km. At present, metro plays the most important role in relieving the traffic congestions in these three cities, meanwhile it
brings in comfortable and convenient travels for residents and travelers.
Although there are many advantages about metro networks, there also exist many risks. We find that the failures of
metro networks come from natural hazards, operational errors, terrorist attacks and power blackouts, which can cause very
serious consequences [9,10]. For example, two trains collided with each other in Shanghai metro network in 2009, and three
explosions caused by terrorists happened in London metro network in July 7, 2005, and 31 persons died in fire at King’s Cross
station in November 18, 1987. Observing the failures of metro networks, it is obvious that the safeties of metro networks
should be paid much attention, and the security check must be more careful. At the same time, the operators must obey the
transport rules and should be given sophisticated training. Overall, appropriate measures must be taken to guarantee the
reliability of metro networks [11–15].
Metro networks can be considered as complex networks [8], so the complex network theory and method [16–21] can be
adopted to investigate performance changes of metro networks subjected to failures. Recently, infrastructure networks have
been given increasingly concerns, and many actual networks have been investigated, such as power grid networks [22–25],
pipeline networks [26,27], transportation networks [28–30], and so on. We also discussed the characteristics and investi-
gated the vulnerability of urban transit rail networks, and obtained several useful results [31–34]. Certainly, there are many
literatures studying the vulnerability of networks [35–38].
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the models and analyzes the basic properties of three metro
networks. Section 3 discusses connectivity and vulnerability of metro networks subjected to the largest degree node-based
attacks. Moreover, the connectivity and vulnerability of metro networks subjected to the highest betweenness node-based
attacks are studied in Section 4. Finally, the conclusion is given in Section 5.

2. Characteristic analysis of metro networks

In this section, the networked characteristics of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou metro networks are analyzed according
to complex network theory and the metro network can be abstracted by undirected graph. For any graph G = ⟨V , E ⟩,
V = {v1 , v2 , . . . , vN } is the set of vertices, and E is the set of edges. Topology is the basis of network and the researches about
topological structures of metro networks are necessary. In the paper, the methodology of complex network is used to analyze
the topological characteristics. Meanwhile, the node betweenness is defined as the number of the shortest paths passing the
node all over the network, and the average node betweenness (ANB) reflects the average frequency of the shortest paths
passing a node. The edge betweenness is defined as the number of the shortest paths passing the edge all over the network
and the average edge betweenness (AEB) represents the average frequency of the shortest paths passing an edge.
Table 1 gives the basically topological characteristics of three metro networks and shows that the average degree
of Beijing metro network slightly larger than that of Shanghai and Guangzhou metro networks. Meanwhile, clustering
coefficients of three metro networks are very small and Beijing metro network has the largest clustering. Hence, we can
declare that Beijing metro network has the best local connectivity among them. Table 1 also shows that the ANB and AEB
increase with the increase of the number of nodes (network size). ANB can represent the average transport capacity of nodes
and AEB can represent the average transport capacity of edges of networks. Therefore Table 1 illustrates that Shanghai metro
network has the largest transport capacity among three networks, and Guangzhou metro network has the smallest transport
capacity. According to the ANB and AEB, we know that the nodes and edges of Shanghai metro network bear more loads than
that of the other two metro networks.
Fig. 1 shows the degree distributions of three metro networks. It depicts that when the degree equals 2, the probability on
degree distribution of Shanghai metro network exceeds 0.8, as the same as Guangzhou metro network, but the probability on
degree distribution of Beijing metro network equals 0.76. When the degree equals 4, the probability on degree distributions
of Shanghai and Guangzhou metro networks are less than 0.1, and the probability on degree distribution of Beijing metro
network equals 0.1163. At the other points, degree distributions of these three metro networks are similar with each
other. From Table 1, the maximum degree of Shanghai metro network equals 7, and the maximum degrees of Beijing and
Guangzhou metro networks equal 5. When the degree equals 6 and 7, the probabilities on degree distributions of Shanghai
metro network equal 0.0042. According to Fig. 1, it is known that Beijing metro network has the best homogeneous degree
distribution and Guangzhou metro network possesses the most heterogeneous degree distribution.
74 J. Zhang et al. / Physica A 496 (2018) 72–78

Table 1
The basic topological characteristics of three metro networks.
Parameter Metro
Shanghai Beijing Guangzhou
Node number 240 129 80
Edge number 264 142 84
Maximum degree 7 5 5
Minimum degree 1 1 1
Average degree 2.2 2.2016 2.1
ANB 3232 1284 756.55
AEB 1577.7 641.3521 397.881
Clustering coefficient 0.0018 0.0078 0

Fig. 1. Degree distributions of three metro networks.

3. Connectivity vulnerability of metro networks

In this section, two different attack protocols are involved to investigate the vulnerability of metro networks. Continuous
targeted-attacks will be adopted to delete the nodes one by one, and two attack protocols are designed as follows. (1) The
largest degree node-based attacks. That is to say, from the original state, the largest degree node will be deleted from the
network and all the topological characteristics of metro networks will be recalculated after the attack, and the attacks
continue. (2) The highest betweenness node-based attacks. The highest betweenness node is removed from the network
firstly, meanwhile the topological characteristics of metro networks are also recalculated, and the attacks continue. From
the aforementioned attack protocols, it is known that the nodes will be deleted from the network one by one and the
performances of metro networks will be changed after attacks. In this paper, these two continuous targeted-attacks are
applied to assess characteristic changes of metro networks.
The connectivity describes the topological structure of metro network and the connectivity vulnerability can reflect
the characteristic changes of topological structure when the metro network encounters malicious attacks. Hence, the
global connectivity and the shortest path between two nodes are considered in this paper. The shortest path between two
nodes vi and vj is defined as the minimum number dij of links necessary to follow from node vi to node vj , and network
efficiency [39,40] describing global connectivity of metro networks is defined as follows,
N
2 ∑ 1
E= (1)
N(N − 1) dij
i,j=1(i̸ =j)

where the sum is over all N(N − 1)/2 pairs of nodes. It is obvious that the smaller the shortest path between two nodes is,
the larger the network efficiency of network is.
Fig. 2 shows the changes of network efficiencies of three metro networks subjected to the largest degree node-based
attacks, and it depicts that Guangzhou metro network has the largest network efficiency and Shanghai metro network has
the smallest network efficiency. Network efficiency reflects the global connectivity of networks, that is to say, Guangzhou
 J. Zhang et al. / Physica A 496 (2018) 72–78 75

Fig. 2. Network efficiency subjected to the largest degree node-based attacks.

metro network has the best global connectivity. From Fig. 2, we can find that network efficiency of Beijing metro network
has a few differences with that of Guangzhou metro network when the fraction of removed nodes is smaller than 0.07,
this phenomenon illustrates that the removed nodes can result in similar damages to these two metro networks. However,
this difference of these two metro network becomes larger when the fraction of removed nodes belongs to the interval
[0.07, 0.35], this phenomenon indicates that the removed nodes can lead to different damages to these two metro networks.
When the fraction of removed nodes is larger than 0.35, network efficiencies of three metro networks are very small and have
a few differences with each other, which illustrates that these three metro networks have become fragmented. Moreover,
we find that Shanghai metro network has the largest vulnerability subjected to the largest degree node-based attacks.
Fig. 3 shows the changes of network efficiencies of three metro networks subjected to the highest betweenness node-
based attacks. Fig. 3 shows that the network efficiencies of three networks are quickly reduced and it also illustrates
that Guangzhou metro network has the largest network efficiency and Shanghai metro network has the smallest network
efficiency. Therefore it is obvious that Guangzhou metro network has the best global connectivity and Shanghai metro
network has the worst global connectivity. Moreover, we also find that Shanghai metro network has the largest vulnerability
subjected to the largest degree node-based attacks. The results shown in Fig. 3 are similar with the results obtained from
Fig. 2. Hence we can declare that the metro networks are very vulnerable when they suffer malicious attacks.

4. Functionality vulnerability of metro networks

An interdependence analysis about the nodes of metro network is introduced in this section, and it is adopted to
investigate the transport functionality of metro networks. In this paper, functionality loss is proposed to assess the
vulnerability of transport functionality of metro networks [34]. Supposing that the initial transport functionalities of all
the nodes equal 1, F0 (vh ) = 1, h = 1, 2, . . . , N, and the transport functionality of isolated node equals 0. When the node vi is
attacked and removed from the network, if this attack is the mth attack, the transport functionality loss of the node vj (j ̸ = i)
is portrayed by
m
∑
FL(vj ) = [Fl−1 (vj ) − Fl (vj )] (2)
l=1

where Fl (vj ) is the transport functionality of node vj after the lth attack. Meanwhile, the iteration about the transport
functionality of node vj is given as,
1
Fl (vj ) = Fl−1 (vj ) − Fl−1 (vj ) (3)
d2ij kj
where dij is the shortest path length between node vj and vi after the (m − 1)th attack, and kj is the present degree of the
node vj after the (m − 1)th attack. After the node vi being deleted, the transport functionality loss of network is obtained by
N
∑
FLN = FL(vj ). (4)
j=1,j̸ =i
76 J. Zhang et al. / Physica A 496 (2018) 72–78

Fig. 3. Network efficiency subjected to the highest betweenness node-based attacks.

Fig. 4. Functionality loss subject to the largest degree node-based attacks.

Because of the interdependence of nodes, transport functionalities of other nodes will be affected when one node is
removed from the network. Additionally, peoples’ psychologies will be influenced by the failures of nodes if they travel by
metros. Hence, the transport functionalities of the other nodes of metro network will be affected and reduced. Meanwhile,
the transport functionalities of nodes will become smaller and smaller subjected to continuous attacks, so the functionality
loss of network becomes larger and larger. Thence, it is suitable to apply the functionality loss to assess vulnerability of metro
networks.
Fig. 4 describes the changes of functionality losses of three metro networks subjected to the largest degree node-based
attacks and it shows that Guangzhou metro network has the smallest functionality loss and Beijing metro network has the
most functionality loss. It is obvious that Guangzhou metro network has the best reliability among them. Fig. 5 introduces
the changes of transport functionality losses of metro networks subjected to the highest betweenness node-based attacks.
We know that the functionality loss of Guangzhou metro network is slightly smaller than that the other two networks, but
the functionality loss of Beijing metro networks is similar with that of Shanghai metro network. Fig. 5 also illustrate that
Guangzhou metro network has the best the reliability among them. In addition, Guangzhou metro network has the best
 J. Zhang et al. / Physica A 496 (2018) 72–78 77

Fig. 5. Functionality loss subject to the highest betweenness node-based attacks.

global connectivity among them according to Fig. 3, so we can declare that Guangzhou metro network has the best topology
among them.

5. Conclusion

In this paper, the vulnerability of metro networks is investigated according to different attack protocols which are
considered as the malicious attacks. Meanwhile network efficiency and functionality loss are presented to measure the
vulnerability of metro networks, and the characteristic changes of three networks subjected to malicious attacks have been
compared with each other. The results show that Shanghai metro network has the largest transport capacity, Beijing metro
network has the best local connectivity and Guangzhou metro network has the best global connectivity. Meanwhile, we
find that metro networks are very vulnerable when they suffer malicious attacks, and Shanghai metro network has the
largest vulnerability and Guangzhou metro network has the best reliability subjected to malicious attacks. Based on the
analyses, it is obvious that there is a trade-off between connectivity and transport capacity of metro networks. Moreover,
the aforementioned results show that the proposed methodology is effective and feasible to investigate the vulnerability
and to explore better topological structure of metro networks.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported jointly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61304175, 61503166, 61673197
and 61503164), Science and Technology project of Xuzhou (KC16SG253), and the Natural Science Foundation for Youths of
Jiangsu Province of China (BK20140241).

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