The fragile nature of road transportation systems : conference paper

  • Major cities worldwide experience problems with the performance of their road transportation systems, and the continuous increase in traffic demand presents a substantial challenge to the optimal operation of urban road networks and the efficiency of traffic control strategies. Although robust and resilient transportation systems have been extensively researched over the past decades, their performance under an ever-growing traffic demand can still be questionable. The operation of transportation systems is widely believed to display fragile property, i.e., the loss in performance increases exponentially with the linearly increasing magnitude of disruptions, which undermines their continuous operation. Nowadays, the risk engineering community is embracing the novel concept of antifragility, which enables systems to learn from historical disruptions and exhibit improved performance as disruption levels reach unprecedented magnitudes. In this study, we demonstrate the fragile nature of road transportation systems when faced with demandMajor cities worldwide experience problems with the performance of their road transportation systems, and the continuous increase in traffic demand presents a substantial challenge to the optimal operation of urban road networks and the efficiency of traffic control strategies. Although robust and resilient transportation systems have been extensively researched over the past decades, their performance under an ever-growing traffic demand can still be questionable. The operation of transportation systems is widely believed to display fragile property, i.e., the loss in performance increases exponentially with the linearly increasing magnitude of disruptions, which undermines their continuous operation. Nowadays, the risk engineering community is embracing the novel concept of antifragility, which enables systems to learn from historical disruptions and exhibit improved performance as disruption levels reach unprecedented magnitudes. In this study, we demonstrate the fragile nature of road transportation systems when faced with demand or supply disruptions. First, we conducted a rigorous mathematical analysis to establish the fragile nature of the systems theoretically. Subsequently, by taking into account real-world stochasticity, we implemented a numerical simulation with realistic network data to bridge the gap between the theoretical proof and the real-world operations, to reflect the potential impact of uncertainty on the fragile property of the systems. This work aims to demonstrate the fragility of road transportation systems and help researchers better comprehend the necessity to explicitly consider antifragile design for future traffic control strategies, coping with the constantly growing traffic demand and subsequent traffic accidents.show moreshow less

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Author:Linghang Sun, Yifan Zhang, Cristian AxenieORCiD, Margherita Grossi, Anastasios Kouvelas, Michail Makridis
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000681460
Document Type:conference proceeding (article)
Language:English
Date of first Publication:2024/05/15
Reviewed:Begutachtet/Reviewed
Release Date:2025/02/17
Tag:(anti-)fragility, road transportation systems, macroscopic fundamental diagram, model stochasticity
Pagenumber:31
Konferenzangabe:24th Swiss Transport Research Conference (STRC 2024), Ascona, Switzerland, May 15-17, 2024
institutes:Fakultät Informatik
Research Themes:Mobilität, Verkehr, Logistik
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