Freeway Network Connective Reliability Analysis Based Complex Network Approach.

The freeway plays an essential role in intercity transportation, due to its safety, convenience and efficiency. To ensure the gradually networked freeway system to operate smoothly and efficiently, the connective reliability evaluation become extremely important. Applying the complex network approach, the improved evaluation indicators of complex network, such as structural degree, betweenness and shortest path length are defined respectively to reflect the freeway network's structural properties firstly. Secondly, a measurement considering the effective paths number is proposed to evaluate freeway network's connective reliability. Finally, based on the freeway network in Shandong Province (SFN), which is the largest scale freeway network in eastern China, those evaluation indicators are calculated, and the freeway network's connective reliability are evaluated under different scenarios. The nodes with high structural betweenness must be given more protection so as to improve the reliability of the SFN under random attack The structural properties and reliability analysis of freeway networks are helpful for road planning and unexpected major events control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]