Robustness of Global Network of Container terminals

If a container terminal fails to operate under an attack, as a nod of the network, its failure will pervade in entire network of container terminals. The robustness of the global container terminal network under possible attack types are studied. The complex network composed of 761 ports（nodes） is modeled. Acascading failure model is constructed based on the principle of node degree and load redistribution. The situations under 3 attack scenarios, the random attack, the maximum degree attack and the maximum betweenness attack, are analyzed to find the connectivity change through calculating three connectivity indexes, node retention rate, network efficiency and the maximum percentage of connected subgraph. The analysis shows that the network is relatively strong against random attacks but weaker to maximum degree attacks and maximum betweenness attacks. Under an intentional attack the network may collapse if the attack repeats several times up to a threshold. The network is weaker against a maximum betweenness attack than against a maximum degree attack.