Structural evolution of China's air transport network

This paper analyzed the structure of air transport network of China (ATNC) during 1952–2008 based on the Network Theory. First, the paper identified the allometric growth of ATNC, and the fluctuating growth of nodes (cities) and edges (airlines or city-pairs). Second, the dynamic statistical properties of the ATNC were observed with indices: degree distribution, average path length, and clustering coefficient. Degree distribution shows the long-tail characteristics with high-degree nodes. The small average path length and the high clustering coefficient indicate that the ANTC has gradually developed to a small-world network. In summary, the paper gave an analysis on the evolution process of ATNC, and provided an experimental base for designing theoretical evolution models.