Reliability analysis of high-speed railway network

Abstract

The reliability of high-speed railway network is an important issue for the sustainable development of railway traffic. A high reliable railway network not only has a longer service life but also has a greater ability to resist destruction of the network. In this article, based on the theory of complex network, we construct a topological networked model to study and analyze the reliability of high-speed railway network with respect to the destruction caused by natural disasters, geological disasters, equipment failure, or man-made disasters. In real world, heavy rain and snow storms are frequent on a large scale. These destructed regions are represented by network communities. Here, we put forward an evaluation index to quantify the network reliability. Taking China high-speed railway network as an example, the results show that some key communities has great influence on the network reliability. When these key communities are destructed by some natural factors, the reliability of railway network would reduce greatly or even breakdown. In addition, we find that the network reliability with the number of deleted communities approximately shows an exponential law.