The effect of attacks on the railway network of Hungary

Abstract

Targeted attacks on the railway network of Hungary were modelled by using a weighted directed graph. Two attack strategies were analyzed, one based on the efficiency measure and one based on the betweenness centrality of the network elements. The results show that while the network elements with the most traffic make the efficiency to decrease the most, the network elements that make the efficiency to decrease the most are not always the busiest ones. The first network element to be destructed is always the Southern railway bridge (or its adjacent stations) at Budapest. The three Danube bridges become unusable in at most five steps. The next most endangered regions of the country to lose their railway connection to the rest of the network are the branch lines at Miskolc, and the three northeastern counties. As the national railway network is vital for the Hungarian Army, not only the protection of the highly threatened network elements is important but also the ability for their substitution which is mostly impossible due to the low ratio of electrified lines which implies the need for a larger fleet of diesel locomotives.