Spatial Structure and Development Patterns of Urban Traffic Flow Network in Less Developed Areas: A Sustainable Development Perspective

Abstract

Sustainable development is a scientific development requirement for economic, social, and ecological development and is particularly important for less developed areas to achieve high quality development. Among them, the traffic flow network is a key contributor to economic activity and an inclusive society, as well as influencing the regional ecology, and is an important way to reflect the connection and structure of cities and towns. Based on the literature related to sustainable development, the article takes the passenger traffic data of highways, railways, and aviation of Inner Mongolia in 2021 as the sample and applies the complex network analysis method to analyze the traffic flow network structure and refine the spatial development patterns. The results show that: (1) The highway network is manifested as the connection between the central urban areas and surrounding banner counties and the connection between the adjacent banner counties. The railroad flow is extended and expanded by the railway line with core cities as the development axis. The internal and external connections of Hohhot are the general form of aviation network. The less developed areas under traffic flow network show obvious pointing of core cities and important node towns. (2) Each traffic flow network has the tendency of scale-free and small-world properties. The influence of key town nodes in the traffic flow network is relatively limited. (3) The town connection patterns under the highway, railway, and air flow networks are “single-core and multi-point”, “axis-spoke”, and “hub-spoke”, respectively. The multiple traffic flows support the development framework of towns in less developed areas. This paper also proposes strategies for the regional transport and urban pattern with complementary advantages and high quality and sustainable development in less developed areas.

Validation of the Basic Supporting Role of Traffic Networks in Regional Factor Flow: A Case Study of Zhejiang Province

“…With improved access to data, the types of "flow" data have become more diverse, which promotes the diversification of research. Examples include research findings on passenger-flow networks using data on high-speed railway schedules [9][10][11], freight networks using data on logistics routes [12], inter-city-trip networks using data on human flow [13][14][15], and enterprise-association networks using data from corporate-headquarters branches [16][17][18]. Discussions of the interrelationships among different types of networks have also appeared in related studies in recent years [18][19][20][21].…”

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Public Transport for SDG Using Geospatial Big Data

“…Su Y proposed the development mode of urban communication networks in less developed areas. Taking the data of highway, railway, and aviation passenger traffic in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2021 as the sample, the complex network analysis method is used to analyze the structure of the traffic flow network and refine the spatial development mode [12].…”

Exploration of Urban Network Spatial Structure Based on Traffic Flow, Migration Flow and Information Flow: A Case Study of Shanxi Province, China

“…Chinese scholars also conducted research on the spatial structure of regions or urban agglomerations based on flow space. In the early stage, traffic flow data (such as highways, railways, air flights and passengers) [16][17][18] were mainly used to study urban network structure and organization modes, urban centrality, and evolution of urban network levels. Today, big data has become an important source for multi-element flows, such as information [19,20], population [21], logistics [22], and capital [23], as well as a new research direction.…”