Research On The Structural Characteristics And Evolution Of Chinese Aviation Network Based On Complex Networks

In the process of China’s rapid economic development,the air transport industry has been booming.In 2019,China’s civil aviation passenger traffic reached 711.909 million person-times,making it the second-largest air transport country in the world after the United States.Nowadays,civil aviation power has become a new strategic task for the development of China’s civil aviation.As an important part of air transportation,the aviation network plays a decisive role in air transportation connectivity,network reliability,and transportation efficiency,and is also an important carrier for realizing the economic and social values of air transportation.Therefore,scientific construction and management of the air network is an important task in the construction of China’s civil aviation power.And the fundamental basis for improving the construction and management of aviation networks is to understand the structure of the aviation network,and its evolution laws.Based on the above background,this paper studies the structure,evolution laws,and influencing factors of China’s aviation network based on complex network theory and major airline data from 1995-2019.In terms of network structure,the structural characteristics of China’s aviation network are empirically analyzed using indicators from complex network theory such as degree and degree distribution,shortest path length,clustering,and node centrality.For the study of the evolution law,Arc GIS spatial visualization method is used to reveal the evolution law of aviation network structure from several aspects of aviation network node centrality,network association structure,network hierarchy characteristics,and network community structure.About influencing factors,the influence of each factor on the evolution of aviation network structure is explored by using factor detection and interaction factor detection in geographical detector.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)With the rapid development of China’s aviation network,the coverage of the network continues to expand,the number of navigable cities and routes has increased significantly,and the links between cities have become increasingly close.The Chinese aviation network is a small world network with quasi-scale-free characteristics and shows certain hierarchical characteristics.(2)The centrality of China’s aviation network nodes has been growing and has broken the network structure dominated by a few eastern cities,and gradually changing to a multicenter and balanced structure.There are obvious regional differences in aviation networks.The national aviation links are mainly distributed between the eastern region and the eastern and western regions,and the core nodes of the network are mainly located in the eastern and western regions,while the central and northeastern regions lack comprehensive central cities,so the Chinese aviation network shows a "saddle-shaped structure" of high at both ends and low at the middle.The relationship between cities is becoming more and more complex,and the Chinese aviation network has gradually formed four connection levels,showing a clear hierarchical structure.In addition,the modularity of China’s aviation network is small and has a downward trend,and the characteristics of the community structure of the network are becoming less and less obvious,and the boundaries of communities are blurred,but the phenomenon of small communities is relatively prominent.(3)The formation and development of China’s aviation network is the result of multiple factors.Urban administrative level,tourism development level,economic development level,public service level and degree of openness are the leading factors,while population size,industrial structure and income level have a slightly weaker impact on the aviation network structure.In addition,the influence of the interaction of each factor on the aviation network structure is stronger than that of a single factor.Based on the above conclusions,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations:(1)Focus on the selection of new airport locations and narrow the distribution differences in spatial patterns.(2)Improve the hierarchy of airport levels and promote the development of regional airlines.(3)Avoid blind expansion and reasonably distribute aviation network construction.