Influence of periodic traffic congestion on epidemic spreading

Abstract

In the metropolis, traffic congestion has become a very serious problem, especially in rush hours. This congestion causes people to have more chance to contact each other and thus will accelerate epidemic spreading. To explain this observation, we present a reaction–diffusion (RD) model with a periodic varying diffusion rate to represent the daily traveling behaviors of human beings and its influence to epidemic spreading. By extensive numerical simulations, we find that the epidemic spreading can be significantly influenced by traffic congestion where the amplitude, period and duration of diffusion rate are the three key parameters. Furthermore, a brief theory is presented to explain the effects of the three key parameters. These findings suggest that except the normal ways of controlling contagion in working places and long-distance traveling, controlling the contagion in daily traffic congestion may be another effective way to reduce epidemic spreading.