Transportnet

Transportnet is a term used in transportation planning and systems analysis to describe a network representation of a transportation system. In a transportnet, nodes denote junctions or places such as intersections, stations, airports, or logistics hubs, while edges denote the links between them, including road segments, rail lines, air corridors, shipping lanes, or pedestrian paths. Each element can carry attributes such as travel time, distance, capacity, tolls, or frequency.

It encompasses road networks, rail networks, public transit networks, and multimodal networks that combine several modes. Transportnet models are typically formulated as graphs and used in algorithms for shortest-path routing, traffic assignment, network flow optimization, timetable synchronization, and incident management. They support static analyses as well as dynamic simulations that incorporate congestion and variability in demand.

Data sources include geographic information systems, open data projects such as OpenStreetMap, and transportation feeds like the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) for schedules. Transportnet analyses inform urban planning, traffic management, logistics and supply chain design, evacuation planning, and environmental impact assessments.

Challenges include data quality and timeliness, temporal dynamics, interoperability among data formats, and scaling to large urban networks. Standardization efforts and interoperable interfaces aim to improve data sharing, while integrating real-time sensor and traveler information enhances the usefulness of transportnet models.