Abstract
The ease of travelling between cities has contributed much to globalization. Yet, it poses a threat on epidemic outbreaks. It is of great importance for network science and health control to understand the impact of frequent journeys on epidemics. We stress that a new framework of modelling that takes a traveller’s viewpoint is needed. Such integrated travel network (ITN) model should incorporate the diversity among links as dictated by the distances between cities and different speeds of different modes of transportation, diversity among nodes as dictated by the population and the ease of travelling due to infrastructures and economic development of a city, and round-trip journeys to targeted destinations via the paths of shortest travel times typical of human journeys. An example is constructed for 116 cities in China with populations over one million that are connected by high-speed train services and highways. Epidemic spread on the constructed network is studied. It is revealed both numerically and theoretically that the traveling speed and frequency are important factors of epidemic spreading. Depending on the infection rate, increasing the traveling speed would result in either an enhanced or suppressed epidemic, while increasing the traveling frequency enhances the epidemic spreading.
Highlights
The ease and speed of inter-city travels offered by the growth in the airline and high-speed train[44] industries and better highways has contributed to making our Earth a global village
Our integrated travel network (ITN) model accounts for different means of transportation by different kinds of links
A journey starts from a city i to an intended destination j through intermediate places along the path that takes the shortest time, which necessarily invoke the actual distance between two cities and the mode of transportation
Summary
The ease and speed of inter-city travels offered by the growth in the airline and high-speed train[44] industries and better highways has contributed to making our Earth a global village. These inter-city travels readily spread a disease to different places. It should be noted that intra-city travel is inhomogeneous It is, of fundamental importance to construct a framework incorporating the differences in travelling means and distances between cities. Of fundamental importance to construct a framework incorporating the differences in travelling means and distances between cities We propose here such a framework to incorporate inhomogeneity among the links and round-trip journeys with intended destination. It is found that infections at the links greatly affect the epidemic threshold, and the traveling speed and frequency are key factors in determining the extent of an epidemic
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