Evaluation on highway networks in China's key areas

Some key areas in China are highly urbanized, economically developed and population concentrated regions which also generate huge highway transportation demand. Because of the unbalanced regional development, there exist huge differences among distinct key areas' highway networks. According to the regional planning published by the central government, this study takes 27 typical key areas in China as the objectives and selects nine indicators reflecting the scale, quality, accessibility and traffic volume of highway networks. It finally develops an integrated evaluation model. The 27 key areas 'highway networks are evaluated and divided into three classes of area. In the last section, this study selects some underdeveloped areas as examples by five typical indicators: the density of highway network, average technical level, average pavement level, connectivity of county-level node, and the percentage of villages connected by asphalt or cement road. It then provides a basis for optimization and upgrading of the highway networks in these underdeveloped areas. 2011 by Science Press.