Cascading failures and resilience evolution in urban road traffic networks with bounded rational route choice

Jianwei Du, Jialei Cui, Gang Ren, Russell G. Thompson and Lele Zhang

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2025, vol. 664, issue C

Abstract: The growing complexity of urban road traffic networks (URTNs) has increased their vulnerability to cascading failures. As one of the fundamental sources of network dynamics, route choice behavior should be essential for the pattern of resilience against cascading failures, but the mechanism between behavioral uncertainty and resilience evolution remains understudied. This paper proposes a novel framework for analyzing URTN resilience under cascading failures, focusing on how behavioral uncertainty shapes failure process and resilience evolution. Specifically, we develop a link-based cascading failure model that integrates load redistribution processes with route choice behavior under uncertainty, incorporating dynamic capacity changes and event intensity effects. The model employs fuzzy cumulative prospect theory (FCPT) to capture travelers' decision-making characteristics, considering both risk preference and perception uncertainty. A multi-level resilience assessment indicator is introduced to evaluate network performance from both structural and operational perspectives. Using Shangyu's URTN as the case study, we find that: (1) the network exhibits moderately high resilience with failure propagation following distinct thresholds; (2) high-importance link failures trigger severe cascading effects, particularly during sustained area-wide disruptions and peak hours; (3) optimal network performance is achieved with a tolerance parameter of 0.2 and moderate risk preference combined with low-to-medium perception uncertainty; and (4) recovery strategies should prioritize directly attacked links to effectively mitigate cascade propagation. These findings provide valuable references for studying URTN resilience against unforeseen cascading failures.

Keywords: Urban road traffic networks; Cascading failures; Network resilience; Route choice; Fuzzy cumulative prospect theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437125001086
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

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:eee:phsmap:v:664:y:2025:i:c:s0378437125001086

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2025.130456

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().