Robustness and Edge Addition Strategy of Air Transport Networks: A Case Study of “the Belt and Road”

Air transportation is of great importance in “the Belt and Road” (the B&R) region. The achievement of the B&R initiative relies on the availability, reliability, and safety of air transport infrastructure. A fundamental step is to find the critical elements in network performance. Considering the uneven distributions of population and economy, the current literature focusing on centrality measures in unweighted networks is not sufficient in the B&R region. By differentiating power and centrality in the B&R region, our analysis leads to two conclusions: (1) Deactivating powerful nodes causes a larger decrease in efficiency than deactivating central nodes. This indicates that powerful nodes in the B&R region are more critical than central nodes for network robustness. (2) Strategically adding edges between high powerful and low powerful nodes can enhance the network's ability to exchange resources efficiently. These findings can be used to adjust government policies for air transport configuration to achieve the best network performance and the most cost effective.