Source: Adapted from William Black (2000) "An Unpopular Essay on Transportation", Douglas Fleming lecture, Presented at the meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Topology and Network Connectivity

Several alternatives, each having a specific topology, are possible to establish a level of service through a transportation network:

• (A) Minimum network. Represents the simplest configuration possible to link a set of locations / nodes, but has also the longest average path length.
• (B or C) Intermediate network. Represents a network topology seeking to find a compromise between the shortcomings of minimalism and the excess of redundancies. Hub-and-spoke networks are an attempt to rationalize services using a specific network topology.
• (D) Complete network. A highly redundant network with a complex topology which has an average path length close to or at the geographic barrier; the lowest possible average path length.

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