Structural evolution of China's air transport network

This paper analyzed the structure of air transport network of China (ATNC) during 1952-2008 based on the Network Theory. First, the paper identified the allometric growth of ATNC, and the fluctuating growth of nodes (cities) and edges (airlines or city-pairs). Second, the dynamic statistical properties of the ATNC were observed with indices: degree distribution, average path length, and clustering coefficient. Degree distribution shows the long-tail characteristics with high-degree nodes. The small average path length and the high clustering coefficient indicate that the ANTC has gradually developed to a small-world network. In summary, the paper gave an analysis on the evolution process of ATNC, and provided an experimental base for designing theoretical evolution models.