Analysis of air traffic network of China

Abstract

The China Air Traffic System (ATS) is facing several substantial challenges, such as the growth of delay, delay propagation and airspace congestion with increasing air traffic flow. As ATS is a complex adaptive system, it is required a systematic analysis. Modern network theory can provide a useful systematic analysis approach to get the mechanism from topology structure characteristics. This paper examines two network structures of the current ATS with complex network approach: the Airport Network of China (ANC) and the Air Route Network of China (ARNC). Measures for overall network structure include degree distribution, average path length and clustering coefficient. Results indicate that the ANC is a small-world (SW) network with short average path length (5.05) and high degree of clustering (0.7659) and its degree distribution follows a double scaling law. Whereas the ARNC just displays scale-free property and it isn't a small-world network with an average path length of 18.1 and a small clustering coefficient of 0.0809.