Citation

Zhou J, Chung NN, Chew LY, Lai CH. Phys. Rev. E Stat. Nonlin. Soft Matter Phys. 2012; 86(2-2): 026115.

Affiliation

Temasek Laboratories, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117411.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, American Physical Society, Publisher American Institute of Physics)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

23005833

Abstract

In this paper, we study the impact of the preference of an individual for public transport on the spread of infectious disease, through a quantity known as the public mobility. Our theoretical and numerical results based on a constructed model reveal that if the average public mobility of the agents is fixed, an increase in the diversity of the agents' public mobility reduces the epidemic threshold, beyond which an enhancement in the rate of infection is observed. Our findings provide an approach to improve the resistance of a society against infectious disease, while preserving the utilization rate of the public transportation system.

Language: en