Traffic-driven epidemic spreading network dynamics with different routing strategies

Abstract

Although the interactions between traffic flow and epidemic spread dynamics have been extensively studied, the impact of routing strategies on the susceptible–infected–recovered (SIR) epidemic spread driven by traffic flow have not received enough attention. In this paper, the traffic-driven SIR epidemic spread model under the probability path routing strategy and the efficient path routing strategy are studied. The instantaneous scale $I_{p}$ of the infected nodes’ density and the final scale $R_{e}$ of the ever infected nodes’ density are obtained through simulation, and it is found that there exist optimal values of routing parameters to minimise $I_{p}$ and $R_{e}$, what is more, $I_{p}$ and $R_{e}$ under the probability path routing strategy are smaller than the values under the efficient path routing strategy. This means that the epidemic spreading can be effectively controlled by adjusting the routing strategy. In addition, when the routing parameter is the optimal value, the influence of packet generation rates, infection rates and cure rates on the epidemic spreading under different routing strategies is further discussed, and it is found that the higher the cure rate, the fewer nodes will be infected. Infected nodes’ density increases as the infection rate and packet generation rate increase, thereby accelerating epidemic spreading. These studies have certain guiding significance for controlling the spread of the epidemic.