A Spatial Model for Infrastructure Network Generation and Evolution

Infrastructure systems are vitally important to our society as they deliver the goods and services that communities require to function. This reliance on infrastructure systems makes any disruption to their functioning liable to result in disproportionate consequences to communities. In this paper we investigate key parameters that exist in real world networks in an attempt to uncover the driving forces of network generation and evolution. We then present a network model that can reproduce networks with several non-trivial properties that are the key signature of real infrastructure networks. By changing the drivers that control evolution of our synthetic networks, the model can potentially help us to better predict what a future infrastructure network may look like, and how resilience it will be to future hazards.