After decades of urban phylogeny , the reality ’s major subway systems appear to be converging on an ideal human body .
On the surface , these gist - and - ramification systems – evident in New York City , Tokyo , London or most any large metropolitan metro – may seem intuitively optimal . But in the absence seizure of top - down fundamental provision , their movement over X toward a coarse numerical distance may hint at world-wide principles of human self - organization .
Understand those principles , and one might “ make urbanism a quantitative science , and understand with datum and count the grammatical construction of a urban center , ” said statistical physicist Marc Barthelemy of France ’s National Center for Scientific Research .
In a May 15Journal of the Royal Society Interface paper , Barthelemy and NCSR complex systems analyst Camille Roth focused a web analysis lens on the aforesaid cities ’ subways , along with Barcelona , Beijing , Berlin , Chicago , Madrid , Mexico , Moscow , Osaka , Paris , Seoul and Tokyo .
With equations used to study two - dimensional spatial net , the course of internet to which subways belong , the researcher call on place and pedigree to a mathematics of nodes and branches . They repeated their analyses with data from each 10 of a subway scheme ’s account , and reckon for underlying trends .
Patterns emerged : The center - and - branch regional anatomy , of path , and pattern more fine - grain . just about half the stations in any tube will be found on its outer branches rather than the substance . The length from a city ’s eye to its furthermost endpoint place is twice the diameter of the subway system ’s centre . This happens again and again .
“ Many other shapes could be expected , such as a regular fretwork , ” said Barthelemy . “ What we bump surprising is that all these different cities , on different Continent , with different history and geographical constraints , lead at long last to the same body structure . ”
subway system systems seem to gravitate towards these ratios organically , through a combination of planning , opportunism , circumstance and socioeconomic wavering , say the researchers .
This is a of the essence point : If the tube watch a predetermine route , their evolution would only reflect a fixed programme . Instead , the convergence “ is a sign that there are some basic , sound mechanism that drive the development of urban organization , ” said Barthelemy .
According to Andrew Adamatzky , a University of West England computer scientist whouses creatures call slime molds to studyoptimal exile meshwork , it ’s possible that applied scientist were determine by early underpass meshing in London , Berlin and Paris .
But Adamatzky still called the results “ very bright , ” say that “ when more data will be collected , then maybe they can suggest some useful theory of underpass development . ”
Barthelemy ’s chemical group say the tendency they observed could next be cross - cite with social shifts in cities . Their ultimate goal is a model of subway organic evolution based on real - world observations . With such a fashion model , they could look for ways to pick off future transportation organization in optimum ways .
To be sure , this would n’t be the first prison term that urbanists have tried to inflict rationality and order on city . The fruit of some such efforts – such as the immense , soulless lodging projects of honey of rectangle - obsessed modernists – proved acid indeed .
But Barthelemy said his mathematical group ’s approach is different , seeking to ameliorate on how the great unwashed course organize themselves rather bring down abstract , arbitrary rules from above .
“ We do n’t have big idea , ” Barthelemy said . “ We ’re just in the outgrowth of trying to read century of development . ”
cite : “ A long - fourth dimension terminal point for world subway system networks . ” By Camille Roth , Soong Moon Kang , Michael Batty and Marc Barthelemy . Proceedings of the Royal Society Interface , 21 December 2024 .
Image : Robert Adrian Hillman / Shutterstock
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