Abstract: In order to ensure operation stability of railway express freight transport in the face of emergencies, theories of complex network and robust optimization are used to study topological characteristics and robustness of REFN. Firstly, statistical parameters of network characteristics were calculated and topological characteristics of REFN were analyzed. Then, important nodes were evaluated before a comprehensive evaluation index was established based on route grade, degree value and betweenness. Lastly, robustness evaluation index under different attack modes was calculated and REFN robustness with or without cascading failure was compared and analyzed. The results show that in contrast to traditional evaluation index of node importance for complex networks, important nodes calculated based on route grade have a greater impact on network robustness. REFN is robust under random attacks, but shows greater vulnerability under intentional attacks, and even more prominent vulnerability when there is cascading failure.

Key words: railway express freight network (REFN), robustness, cascading failure, topological characteristics, evaluation index