Analysis on the Vulnerability and Robustness of China’s Railway Network from the Perspective of Complex Network

The railway is one of the crucial means of transportation. The construction of the railway network is affected by factors such as the cities’ development level and passenger flow along the route. This paper establishes a complex network model of China’s railways based on two indicators: the level of urban economic development and the level of train operation, which is divided into complex upper-level networks and lower-level complex networks. The upper complex network is the overall network of China’s railway network, and the lower complex network is the sub-network of each train of China’s high-speed railway. This paper analyzes the two layers of the network separately and points out the pivotal cities in China’s railway network, the relatively fragile railway lines, and the cities with the most significant number of trains in different railway networks. On this basis, we put forward development suggestions for the construction of China’s high-speed railway network.