Urban Road Network Evolution Characteristics And Growth Model Research

Urban traffic network is composed of traffic node (such as hub, yard, etc.) and traffic lines (such as roads, public transit routes, etc.) within the city. Urban road network is not only the foundation of urban traffic network, but also the carrier of urban traffic activities. Despite the fact that the urban road networks differ in thousands of ways, they constitute the backbone of cities and decide the development direction. According to the "National Plan on New Urbanization" which is officially issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in2014, the urbanization in China is coming into the stage of high quality and rapid speed. In the near further, the population size and the space scale of the city will further expand. How to construct more scientific and more efficient urban road networks to optimize the layout and spatial structure of cities is one of the most important research issues in the field of urban traffic.It is known to all that urban road network is a classic, exoteric and complex system, so it is necessary to develop theoretical and applied research with complex systems methods through combining the principle of system sciences and the interdisciplinary theoretical system. In recent years, the rise of complex network theory provides us with a new perspective and method on the research of urban road network. The complex network theory and methods are useful in understanding the structure and evolution characteristics of urban road network from the overall and macro perspective, and the results play a great role in providing a theoretical basis for solving problems related to urban transport, and provide scientific guidance for urban road system planning, design, management, and optimization.Given this, this paper takes the road network of Beijing as an example and analyzed the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of it based on the integrated use of complex network theory and computer simulation and other related science and technology. Then, a new algorithm for the topological center of a geographic space is designed to verify the relationship between the spatial distribution of urban road network and topology center. Finally, the center based growth model of urban road network is proposed. The main work of this paper can be summarized as followed:(1) Empirical analysis of the structure properties and evolution characteristics of the road network of Beijing. We have manually extracted road network data of Beijing and then analysis the structure properties and evolution characteristics from both macro and micro levels. We show that the growth of the road network is governed by two elementary process, namely’densification’and’exploration’.(2) We proposed the RCD algorithm to detect the city center (which can also be called the topological center). Provide an efficient and reasonable algorithm to identify the exact location of the true center of a geographical space, and implement the algorithm in two ways to foster the application of the topological center in related fields. At last, the spatial distribution characteristics of the road network of Beijing is analyzed based on the topological center.(3) The construction of center based growth model (CBGM) of urban road network. After a review of existing road network evolution models, we proposed our center based growth model and use it to simulate the evolution process of the road network of Beijing. The comparison between empirical results and simulation results show that our model can explain the urban road network evolution well.