An efficient strategy for enhancing traffic capacity by removing links in scale-free networks

An efficient link-removal strategy, called the variance-of-neighbor-degree- reduction (VNDR) strategy, for enhancing the traffic capacity of scale-free networks is proposed in this paper. The VNDR strategy, which considers the important role of hub nodes, balances the amounts of packets routed from each node to the node's neighbors. Compared against the outcomes of strategies that remove links among hub nodes, our results show that the traffic capacity can be greatly enhanced, especially under the shortest path routing strategy. It is also found that the average transport time is effectively reduced by using the VNDR strategy only under the shortest path routing strategy. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.