May 25, 2005
PARIS is the world's most vital hub for international air travel,
now being likened to the Internet.
And Singapore figures fourth on a list, in a study conducted by a
team of researchers from Northwestern University, US, reported AP.
We're immediately after London, which is third, and before New
York.
But what is Anchorage, Alaska doing in second place?
It's the city's centrality, that's what - a rating of the shortest
paths connecting any two cities that involve a transfer at a
particular city.
The researchers found that the busiest locations are not always the
most important for the network.
Anchorage has non-stop flights to 39 other cities, far fewer than
the 242 cities connected to London non-stop.
But it edges London and Singapore in the vital measure of
centrality - a rating of the shortest paths connecting any two
cities that involve a transfer at a particular city.
This is what boosts the importance of cities like it and Port
Moresby, Papua-New Guinea (PNG), which serve as connection hubs
between many other airports and international connections, the
researchers explained.
Like Anhcorage, many Pacific islands are connected by air, and Port
Moresby is the hub that links many of them to the outside. That
places PNG's capital seventh on the worldwide list, ahead of such
busy places as Frankfurt, Tokyo and Moscow.
The connections among 3,883 communities with airports around the
world were analysed by the team by associate professor Luis Amaral
of the university's Chemical and Biological Engineering
faculty.
-The New Paper