The robustness evaluation of global maritime transportation networks

The structural robustness of maritime transportation network describes the antijamming ability of maritime transportation system, which is closely related to the transportation efficiency. Current researches on the robustness of maritime transportation networks mainly focus on the container transportation network, but ignore the type difference of cargo ships or even ports. This paper builds a more complete global maritime transportation network with the AIS data of the global cargo ships in 2015. Then, for the three transportation modes, namely oil tanker, container and bulk carrier, it proves that the three networks are complex networks with topological structures following the power law distribution, and three attack strategies including a random attack and two intentional attacks are conducted to evaluate the survivability of the corresponding transportation networks in different situations. The results show that: (1) in sharp comparison to the transportation network based on OD information of container liners, the networks constructed with the AIS data of the cargo ships fully reflect the global cargo transportation pattern and process; (2) The robustness of different maritime transportation networks differs greatly, with the container transportation network being the weakest and the bulk carrier transportation network the strongest. (3) Small intentional attacks may exert greater impact on the integrity of the container transportation network, but have less impact on bulk carrier transportation network and oil tanker transportation network. It is argued that these conclusions can help to improve decision support capabilities on maritime transportation planning and emergency response, which facilitates the establishment of a more reliable maritime transportation system. © 2017, Science Press. All right reserved.