Spatiotemporally complementary effect of high-speed rail network on robustness of aviation network

Although previous studies explored the relationship between high-speed rail (HSR) and civil aviation, most of them focus on the negative effects of HSR on civil aviation, including the competition between them. However, studies exploring the positive effects of HSR on civil aviation remain limited. This study demonstrates that a high-speed rail network (HSRN) has a spatiotemporally complementary effect (CE) on the robustness of aviation networks (ANs) against different types of hazards. First, we describe the AN as a multiple weighted network with the CE of HSRN based on the operating routes of flights and trains, instead of an independent network. Then, a novel framework for assessing the robustness of AN is developed considering travel time and service frequency as its metrics and considering the coverage distance of the CE. We find that the CE can obviously reduce the loss of the AN's performance under various disaster scenarios by analyzing the robustness of the AN of Mainland China complemented by HSRN; different levels of CE have different effects on the robustness of AN. Besides the airports located in Eastern China, some non-hub airports such as Changzhou, Wuxi, and Shaorao, are easily complemented by the HSRN. Further, the CE at different times exerts different effects on the robustness of AN, which reach a peak at 16:00 and 07:00. These findings can help broaden the ideas and approaches for enhancing the robustness of the AN.

Automated summary

This study explores the complementary effect of high-speed rail network (HSRN) on the robustness of aviation networks (ANs). By considering the operating routes of flights and trains, a novel framework is developed to assess the robustness of ANs. The study finds that the complementary effect can significantly reduce the performance loss of ANs under different disaster scenarios, and its impact varies at different times.