  We present a comparative network theoretic analysis of the two largest global
transportation networks: The worldwide air-transportation network (WAN) and the
global cargoship network (GCSN). We show that both networks exhibit striking
statistical similarities despite significant differences in topology and
connectivity. Both networks exhibit a discontinuity in node and link
betweenness distributions which implies that these networks naturally segragate
in two different classes of nodes and links. We introduce a technique based on
effective distances, shortest paths and shortest-path trees for strongly
weighted symmetric networks and show that in a shortest-path-tree
representation the most significant features of both networks can be readily
seen. We show that effective shortest-path distance, unlike conventional
geographic distance measures, strongly correlates with node centrality
measures. Using the new technique we show that network resilience can be
investigated more precisely than with contemporary techniques that are based on
percolation theory. We extract a functional relationship between node
characteristics and resilience to network disruption. Finally we discuss the
results, their implications and conclude that dynamic processes that evolve on
both networks are expected to share universal dynamic characteristics.
