Analysing Transportation Network Vulnerability to Critical-Link Attacks Through Topology Changes and Traffic Volume Assessment

As a critical infrastructure, the transportation network impacts health, safety, comfort, and the economy, making it highly vulnerable to disruptions that significantly affect social and economic well-being. To maintain optimal service during such disruptions, the critical components that are vulnerable to disruptions must be identified and their impact on network performance must be understood. This study proposes a method for identifying network vulnerabilities in worst-case scenarios by targeting critical components derived from network topological parameters. These parameters serve as proxies for performance and are utilised to generate critical-link attacks to assess the network vulnerability. In addition, this study proposes a straightforward and simplistic modelling framework using topological parameters to assess the impact of critical link attacks on traffic flow changes. To characterise network performance and traffic volume changes under critical-link attacks, this study utilises the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF), which has rarely been utilised in previous studies. The proposed method was applied to a real network in the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) area in Sri Lanka. The findings of this study will help us understand the impact of critical-link attacks on transportation network performance and traffic flow and develop proactive policies to address vulnerabilities and improve overall network performance.