title: Epidemic spreading induced by diversity of agents' mobility.
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.
authors.affiliation: Temasek Laboratories, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Ning Ning
authors.initials: NN
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Lock Yue
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Chew
authors.forename: Choy Heng
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Lai
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D058872:Epidemics; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009068:Movement; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011336:Probability; D012846:Singapore; D014186:Transportation