Department of Transportation Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran.
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.
Nat Hum Behav. 2018 Sep;2(9):645-652. doi: 10.1038/s41562-018-0407-3. Epub 2018 Aug 20.
Understanding the structural and dynamical drivers of network flow is an important goal for our complete understanding of complex systems. Particularly challenging is the determination of the routes used by items when flowing through a network. The study of vehicular traffic flow in cities offers a unique opportunity to test theoretical models about network flows and traffic routes using experimental data. Here, we found observational evidence that there is higher vehicular traffic flow through the communicability shortest paths, which assume an 'all-routes' flow, than through the shortest paths in four cities of different sizes, populations and geographical locations. The communicability function is derived here from a coarse-grained theory of traffic on networks accounting for an auxiliary vehicular propagation speed. Finally, we study the vehicular 'all-routes' flow in cities as the perceptual problem of drivers seeing the shortest paths as 'too central to be empty'.
理解网络流量的结构和动态驱动因素是我们全面理解复杂系统的重要目标。特别具有挑战性的是确定物品在网络中流动时所使用的路径。城市中车辆交通流量的研究为使用实验数据测试关于网络流量和交通路线的理论模型提供了独特的机会。在这里，我们发现了观测证据，表明在通信最短路径上的车辆交通流量更高，这些最短路径假设了“所有路线”的流量，而在四个不同规模、人口和地理位置的城市中的最短路径上则较低。通信函数是从网络上的交通粗粒化理论中得出的，该理论考虑了辅助车辆传播速度。最后，我们将城市中的车辆“所有路线”流量作为驾驶员将最短路径视为“过于中心而不会为空”的感知问题进行研究。
