An innovative approach to solve the network design problem concerning intelligent vulnerabilities

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2016 in the subject Computer Science - General, grade: 4, The University of Memphis, language: English, abstract: In todays congested transportation networks, disturbances like crashes may cause unexpected and significant delays. All transportation networks are vulnerable to disruptions, to some extent, with temporary or permanent effects. Vulnerability is more important in urban transportation networks, due to heavy use and road segments that are close to each other. Small disturbances on an urban transportation network segment can have a huge impact on its accessibility. Intelligent adversaries may take advantage of these vulnerable parts of the network in order to disrupt the transportation operations, and increase the overall transportation cost for the users. Often, the decision of improving the networks in transportation planning and management tasks are made without adequately taking into account the possible vulnerabilities. By considering the factor of vulnerability in their decision, planners could prevent severe unforeseen disruptions in the future. Robustness is defined as the extent to which, a network under disturbances is able to maintain its function for which it was initially designed. This study proposes an innovative model for designing robust networks against intelligent attackers. In the model, three decision makers are considered: the network manager/designer, the adversary (intelligent attacker) and the users of the network.