Designing optimal transport networks

Abstract

We investigate the optimal design of networks for a general transport system. Our network is built from a regular two-dimensional ($d=2$) square lattice to be improved by adding long-range connections (shortcuts) with probability $P_{ij} \sim r_{ij}^{-\alpha}$, where $r_{ij}$ is the Euclidean distance between sites $i$ and $j$, and $\alpha$ is a variable exponent. We introduce a cost constraint on the total length of the additional links and find optimal transport in the system for $\alpha=d+1$. Remarkably, this condition remains optimal, regardless of the strategy used for navigation, being based on local or global knowledge of the network structure, in sharp contrast with the results obtained for unconstrained navigation using global or local information, where the optimal conditions are $\alpha=0$ and $\alpha=d$, respectively. The validity of our theoretical results is supported by data on the US airport network, for which $\alpha\approx 3.0$ was recently found [Bianconi {\it et al.}, arXiv:0810.4412 (2008)].