Analysis of the European international railway network and passenger transfers

Abstract

• Complex networks analysis is an appropriate tool for studying transport networks. • Railway in europe is strategic for passenger mobility and has not been analysed so far. • A description of the european network is performed and compared with the chinese. • Passenger transfers allows connecting more stations when timetables are synchronised. • Analysis of the connectivity of european cities is carried out considering transfers. Railway transportation is one of the most popular and greenest transportation modes for passengers. Its importance has increased in some regions owing to the deployment of high-speed infrastructures. In Europe, it is a competitive transportation mode for short and medium distance journeys, rivalling airway mode. For topological analysis of transportation networks, Complex Networks Analysis (CNA) appears as a powerful methodology that although used in various circumstances to describe national railway networks, it has not been used thus far at a continental level. In this paper, two topological characterisations of the European International Railway Network are performed using CNA. The first analyses the direct connection among cities in the international railway service using the most commonly used metrics. The results are compared with those of the Chinese Railway Network, of similar size, observing their differences regarding assortativity. The second analysis incorporates passenger transfers between services, discussing how connectivity is improved when timetables are synchronised, remarking the importance of such coordination. Centrality metrics are defined for the assessment of the connectivity of the network. For the sake of realism, thresholds for the maximum reasonable distance to be travelled by train are introduced in the definition of the centrality metrics.