A Comparative Study on the Vulnerability of Metro Network Efficiency: New York City, Shanghai, and Jinan

With the continuous development of the global urbanization process, the underground space transportation networks of cities in various countries or regions have shown different scales. The underground transportation network connects all corners of the cities, which greatly improves the efficiency of commuting within the cities. However, under the background of gradually intensifying climate change, frequent occurrence of geological disasters, frequent terrorist attacks, and old and degraded engineering facilities, the urban metro network is vulnerable to a certain extent, and the failure of any link in the network may cause significant reduction in global network efficiency. Using the complex network theory, this paper takes three cities, New York City in the United States, Shanghai and Jinan in China as examples, representing well-developed, developed, and developing cities respectively, and compares and analyzes the vulnerability of metro networks of different scales to network efficiency in the face of emergencies. Then, considering the ridership and the length of the tunnel, taking extreme rainfall as an example, this paper analyzes the changes in network efficiency after the metro networks in Shanghai and Jinan were flooded. Finally, taking Jinan metro as an example, this paper analyzes the impact of entrance-exit lines being flooded on the entire metro network and points out that the entrance-exit lines are the key points of flood control that cannot be ignored in the metro network.