Access-based network growth: preferential attachment with capacity, cost, and connectivity

David Levinson, Somwrita Sarkar, Nazanin Tajik and Alireza Ermagun
Additional contact information
Alireza Ermagun: TransportLab, School of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney

Working Papers from University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group

Abstract: This study proposes a reduced-form, access-based model of network growth in which attachment depends jointly on accumulated connectivity, residual capacity, and origin-destination pair-specific link cost. The kernel contains Barabasi-Albert (BA) preferential attachment, spatial attachment, and capacity-limited growth as limiting cases. At N = 1000, alpha = 1, and kappa = 2, the capacity-only specification (beta = 1, K = 16) reduces mean maximum degree from 82.31 in the BA limiting case to 16.00, while the spatial-only specification (phi = 1) reduces mean edge length from 0.521 to 0.351. Increasing phi from 0 to 2 shortens mean edge length from 0.526 to 0.157, and increasing kappa from 1 to 4 raises clustering and reduces average path length. With mean capacity near 16, integer-uniform and rounded-lognormal capacities raise mean maximum degree to 23.06 and 49.00, respectively. Crossing-handling and access-guided extensions represent junction formation and compare four configured transport-growth strategies using a common ex post access measure. The framework yields directional hypotheses for empirical calibration.

Keywords: network growth; preferential attachment; capacity constraints; link cost; accessibility; spatial networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D85 R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10-23
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Applied Network Science

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41109-026-00842-y Published version landing page, 2026 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nex:wpaper:paper-2026-26

DOI: 10.1007/s41109-026-00842-y

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by David Levinson ().