An Analysis of Statistical Properties on Some Urban Subway Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we present an empirical investigation on 12 urban subway networks in Asia, which include main urban subway networks in China, Japan, Korea, India, Thailand and Singapore. The size of these networks ranges from N=47 to 455. The clustering coefficient, the character path length and the degree distribution have been analyzed. The empirical results show that these networks have high clustering coefficient (C>0.80) and small character path length (L<3.0), which exhibit a small-world behavior (in space p).The empirical studies from different times show that the clustering coefficient C gradually decreases with the increase of the total number of subway stops N, but the characteristic path length L increases, both following a power law. In addition, we also have studied the fractal scaling of these networks and find that these subway networks exhibit some properties of fractal scaling networks.