Exploring the Cascading Failure in Taxi Transportation Networks

To explore the ability of taxi transportation service capacity in unexpected conditions, based on the taxi GPS trajectory data, this paper presented a taxi transportation network and explored a cascading failure model with the non-linear function of traffic intensity as the initial load. Moreover, the cascading failure conditions for different initial loads with different parameter settings were derived by combining the complex network theory. We verified the ability of taxi transportation networks to withstand unexpected conditions and analyzed the differences and features of taxi transportation service capacity for different areas of Lanzhou city. Three sets of comparative simulation experiments were implemented. The results show that when the initial load regulation factor α < 1 / θ , the failure of nodes with smaller initial loads in the network is more likely to cause cascading failure phenomena. When α > 1 / θ , the failure of nodes with larger initial loads in the network is more likely to cause cascading failure phenomena. Additionally, when α = 1 / θ , there is no significant correlation between whether cascading failure phenomena occur in the network and node loads. This study can provide a prior basis for decision-making in the management of urban taxi operations under different passenger flow intensities.