Abstract
In this paper, we analyse the gravity model in the global passenger air-transport network. We show that in the standard form, the model is inadequate for correctly describing the relationship between passenger flows and typical geo-economic variables that characterize connected countries. We propose a model for transfer flights that allows exploitation of these discrepancies in order to discover hidden subflows in the network. We illustrate its usefulness by retrieving the distance coefficient in the gravity model, which is one of the determinants of the globalization process. Finally, we discuss the correctness of the presented approach by comparing the distance coefficient to several well-known economic events.
Highlights
In this paper, we analyse the gravity model in the global passenger air-transport network
Before we can verify if the gravity model can reproduce the weights of flight connections, we need to determine the value of the constant G in Eq (1)
Let us assume, that it its value is known. In the systems, such as the international trade network, where the flow between i and j only depends on the importance of trading countries, the constant G can be obtained from Eq (1), fij rijα = Gxixj, (4)
Summary
We analyse the gravity model in the global passenger air-transport network. The well-known examples include migration[1,2,3], consumer spatial behaviour[4], inter-city telephone communication flows[5], hospital-patient flow systems[6], and international trade[7,8,9,10,11,12]. All these models predict or describe certain behaviours that mimic gravitational interaction, as described in Isaac Newton’s law of gravity. The potential flow, fij(g), which might be described by Eq (1), is realized by the increase in subsequent flows fib , fb b , ..., fb b , fb j
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