Approach to Critical Link Analysis of Robustness for Dynamical Road Networks.

This article presents a study of the performance decrease caused by blocking one link. We predict which types of links are important for the well functioning of the network as a whole. Traffic is simulated on a regional network in which the links are blocked sequentially. Each of these outcomes is compared to the outcome of the fully operational network. We argue that traffic dynamics including spillback are important in the reduction of performance. We assessed the performance decrease for two situations, one in which people stick to their everyday routes and one in which they will adapt their routes to the new situation. A blocking of motorways turns out to influence the traffic flow most. In the situation that people stick to their everyday routes, urban roads close to the motorway are equally important: spillback effects causes delays also for through traffic on the motorway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]