STATISTICAL PROPERTIES OF URBAN GROUND BUS-TRANSPORT NETWORKS FROM SELF-AVOIDING RANDOM WALKS

Abstract

We conjecture that the evolution process with self-avoiding random walks is the origin for the properties of urban ground bus-transport networks (BTN). In order to verify our conjecture, a toy model, which simulates the growth of urban bus-transport systems, is proposed after empirical investigation on the BTNs of four major cities in China. In current empirical and simulation research, our method combining weight and geographical topology of the BTN together allows us to study the coupling relations among the BTN's weighted quantities and underlying topological structure. Finally, the simulating results reveal that the model can reproduce most phenomena observed in real-life urban ground BTNs.