A study on the spatial vulnerability of the civil aviation network system in China

Natural hazards may have severe impacts on the performance of transportation systems. Although a natural hazard is usually spatially local, its impact, through the network of transportation systems, could become global. This paper is particularly concerned with how to quantitatively assess the vulnerability of a network system by taking into account indirect impact of spatially local hazards. To this end, this paper firstly defines a neutral line and impact curve. Then, based on neutral line and impact curve, two novel spatial vulnerability indexes are proposed: absolute spatial vulnerability index (ASVI) and relative spatial vulnerability index (RSVI). Both ASVI and RSVI can effectively indicate to what extent a network system is vulnerable/neutral/robust to spatially local hazards. The proposed spatial vulnerability indexes are then particularly applied to study the civil aviation network system in China, and the simulation results show that (i) the new concept is correct and useful, and (ii) the Chinese civil aviation network system is vulnerable to spatially local hazards when indirect impact is considered.