dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaOptimal Traffic Networks
| Authors | Marc Barthelemy, Alessandro Flammini |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0601203 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0601203 |
| DOI | 10.1088/1742-5468/2006/07/L07002 |
| Journal | J. Stat. Mech. (2006) L07002 |
Abstract
Inspired by studies on the airports' network and the physical Internet, we propose a general model of weighted networks via an optimization principle. The topology of the optimal network turns out to be a spanning tree that minimizes a combination of topological and metric quantities. It is characterized by a strongly heterogeneous traffic, non-trivial correlations between distance and traffic and a broadly distributed centrality. A clear spatial hierarchical organization, with local hubs distributing traffic in smaller regions, emerges as a result of the optimization. Varying the parameters of the cost function, different classes of trees are recovered, including in particular the minimum spanning tree and the shortest path tree. These results suggest that a variational approach represents an alternative and possibly very meaningful path to the study of the structure of complex weighted networks.
{
"annotation_id": "fe7a664d-e4c6-42f2-b518-cd554388d8a3",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:04.339000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:04.339000Z",
"file_hash": "ee7ae28e336c33c8632075dfb4c73da69a32daf87d15db26a25fce67cdc6a1ff",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "Inspired by studies on the airports\u0027 network and the physical Internet, we\npropose a general model of weighted networks via an optimization principle. The\ntopology of the optimal network turns out to be a spanning tree that minimizes\na combination of topological and metric quantities. It is characterized by a\nstrongly heterogeneous traffic, non-trivial correlations between distance and\ntraffic and a broadly distributed centrality. A clear spatial hierarchical\norganization, with local hubs distributing traffic in smaller regions, emerges\nas a result of the optimization. Varying the parameters of the cost function,\ndifferent classes of trees are recovered, including in particular the minimum\nspanning tree and the shortest path tree. These results suggest that a\nvariational approach represents an alternative and possibly very meaningful\npath to the study of the structure of complex weighted networks.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0601203",
"authors": [
"Marc Barthelemy",
"Alessandro Flammini"
],
"categories": [
"physics.soc-ph",
"cond-mat.dis-nn",
"cs.GL"
],
"doi": "10.1088/1742-5468/2006/07/L07002",
"journal_ref": "J. Stat. Mech. (2006) L07002",
"title": "Optimal Traffic Networks",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0601203"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "79c4529d-2438-4090-91c1-054ea4df451c",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}