Influence of periodic traffic congestion on epidemic spreading

Muhua Zheng, Zhongyuan Ruan, Ming Tang, Younghae Do and Zonghua Liu ()
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Muhua Zheng: Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, P. R. China
Zhongyuan Ruan: Center for Network Science, Central European University, Nador u. 9, 1051 Budapest, Hungary
Ming Tang: Web Science Center, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, P. R. China
Younghae Do: Department of Mathematics, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 702-701, South Korea
Zonghua Liu: Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, P. R. China

International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), 2016, vol. 27, issue 05, 1-14

Abstract: In the metropolis, traffic congestion has become a very serious problem, especially in rush hours. This congestion causes people to have more chance to contact each other and thus will accelerate epidemic spreading. To explain this observation, we present a reaction–diffusion (RD) model with a periodic varying diffusion rate to represent the daily traveling behaviors of human beings and its influence to epidemic spreading. By extensive numerical simulations, we find that the epidemic spreading can be significantly influenced by traffic congestion where the amplitude, period and duration of diffusion rate are the three key parameters. Furthermore, a brief theory is presented to explain the effects of the three key parameters. These findings suggest that except the normal ways of controlling contagion in working places and long-distance traveling, controlling the contagion in daily traffic congestion may be another effective way to reduce epidemic spreading.

Keywords: Epidemic spreading; complex network; traffic congestion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1142/S0129183116500480

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