Vulnerability Analysis of Public Transport Networks: a Dynamic Approach and Case Study for Stockholm

In this paper, a dynamic and stochastic notion of public transport network vulnerability is develoepd. While previous studies have considered only the network topology, the non-continuous availability of services requires a more refined model for supply and demand interactions in order to evaluate the impacts of disruptions. We extend the measures of betweenness centrality (often used to identify potentially important links) and link importance to a dynamic-stochastic setting from the perspectives of both operators and passengers. We also formalize the value of real-time information (RTI) provision for reducing disruption impacts. The developed measures are applied in a case study for the highfrequency public transport network of Stockholm, Sweden. The importance ranking of the links varies depending on the RTI provision scheme. This suggests that RTI may have significant positive but also negative influence on disruption impacts, and that betweenness centrality (passenger/vehicle flows) may not be a good indicator of link importance.