Higher-Order Rewiring Strategy for Enhancing Robustness of Multiplex Aviation Networks

Aviation networks consist of networks of flight services provided by numerous airlines and are represented in the form of multiplex networks composed of a set of nodes, multiple layers of links, and coupling node relationships across all layers. However, multiplex aviation networks (MANs) are vulnerable to disturbances due to potential cascading failures. Thus, the robustness of MANs must be maintained. Previous studies on the robustness of MANs have mainly focused on the pairwise interactions between two nodes, which are insufficient for characterizing the dynamic processes of actual MANs. In addition, current cascading failure models are not adequate for MANs, as flow must be redistributed within multiplex networks rather than to nearby airports. To solve these issues, this study developed a topology model of MANs and introduced a model of node congestion to simulate the cascading failure process. Given the robustness assessment of MANs under intentional attacks, numerous analyses of higher-order interactions in networks are conducted. A higher-order cycle structure rewiring strategy is proposed to enhance the dynamic interaction among the layers and further improve the robustness of the MANs. Extensive experiments on synthetic and actual EU-Air multiplex networks are presented to illustrate the superiority of the proposed approach over state-of-the-art algorithms in improving the robustness of MANs.