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Author Topic: Interesting RL info on subway network parameters  (Read 1113 times)

Miuramir

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Interesting RL info on subway network parameters
« on: May 17, 2012, 11:57:15 am »

It seems that in RL, sufficiently large subway networks worldwide converge to similar parameters, even if they start out quite differently.  The tuning parameters involved might be of interest to those designing large minecart megaprojects. 
BBC article & summary
Abstract of the paper at the Royal Society, with further links to the full text PDF

From a quick skim, subways with more than 100 stations fell into some very similar patterns; smaller ones had more variance but tended to be evolving toward similar parameters.
* Subways are *not* fractal.
* Two distinct regions, a core (frequently with a circular loop, sometimes explicit but in other cases possible via transfers) and branches.
* Roughly half the total stations are part of the core, and half are along the branches.
* The number of branches scales roughly with the square root of the total number of stations, and extend past the core on average about twice as far as the radius of the core.
* Roughly 20% of the core stations are cross-connects allowing transfer between lines.

How directly applicable this is to DF is debatable, as subways are primarily people movers; folks trying to design minecart systems for "commuting" dwarves may find it more directly useful than those entirely looking at industrial or offensive systems.  The ideas on connectivity analysis may be useful in more general cases, however. 
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biomatter

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Re: Interesting RL info on subway network parameters
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2012, 03:51:06 pm »

At first I thought this was an unusually accurate spam post. Ha!

Can dwarves ride minecarts as a means of transportation, and not just for hauling? I didn't think they could. In the meantime, I'll be reading that article...
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