Vulnerability of Information Transport on Temporal Networks to Link Removal

Communications networks such as vehicle and social contact networks are temporal networks, where autos/individuals are connected only when they are close to each other. These networks facilitate the propagation of information. Traffic between any two nodes demanded at any time is routed along the fastest time-respecting path. In this work, we investigate the vulnerability of information transport on temporal networks to link removal. The objective is to understand the removal of which types of links deteriorate the efficiency/speed of information transport the most. Identifying such critical links will enable better intervention to facilitate/prohibit the spread of (mis)information. To identify critical links, we propose link-removal strategies based on transport efficiency between two end nodes of each link, properties of links in the aggregated network, and in routing paths respectively. Each strategy ranks links according to their corresponding properties and removes links with the highest measures. Strategies are evaluated via the relative change in transport efficiency after link removal in real-world networks. We find that the path-based strategy performs the best: links appear more often and occur early in the fastest time-respecting paths tend to be critical. Via comprehensive analysis, we explain this strategy's out-performance and its dependency on network properties.