A two-scale network dynamic model for human mobility process

The technological changes and educational expansion have created the heterogeneity in the human species. Clearly, this heterogeneity generates a structure in the population dynamics, namely: citizen, permanent resident, visitor, and etc. Furthermore, as the heterogeneity in the population increases, the human mobility between meta-populations patches also increases. Depending on spatial scales, a meta-population patch can be decomposed into sub-patches, for examples: homes, neighborhoods, towns, etc. Members of the population can move between the sub-patches. The dynamics of human mobility in a heterogeneous and scaled structured population is still its infancy level. In this work, an attempt is made to investigate the human mobility dynamics of heterogeneous and scaled structured population. We present a two scaled human mobility model for a meta-population. The sub regions and regions are interlinked via intra-and inter regional transport network systems. Under various types of growth order assumptions on the intra and interregional residence times of the residents of a sub region, different patterns of static behavior of the mobility process is studied. In addition, the results reveal that the system has a natural tendency to quarantine itself without total breaking a link in the transportation network system. Moreover, there is a threshold point for the largest intra regional visiting time of residents of a given sub region that leads to either a total isolation of the residents from other sub regions within the region or a partial isolation of residents from some of the sub regions within the region. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.