Measurement and influencing factors of urban traffic ecological resilience in developing countries: A case study of 31 Chinese cities

Abstract An urban traffic ecosystem is a spatial structure composed of air, population, vehicles, roads, green spaces, and regions. Traffic ecological resilience is a critical issue in high-quality urban development. From the perspective of system optimization, it is important to study the level of urban traffic ecological resilience and analyze its influencing factors. In this study, we evaluated traffic ecological resilience, characterized its spatio-temporal differentiation, and explored its influencing factors by constructing a system of urban traffic ecological resilience and by analyzing the environmental protection and urban construction data in 31 Chinese cities during 2011–2018. By conducting Kernel density analysis, standard deviation ellipse, comprehensive weight determination, panel data regression analysis, and χ2 test, we found that traffic ecological resilience was low on the whole and exhibited the temporal trend of “decreasing first and then increasing” and the spatial characteristic of “high in the east, second in the middle, and low in the west”. The cities with high traffic ecological resilience density values were located in Southeast China and tended to move from northwest to southeast. Governance capability, market activity, technological innovation capability, opening degree, and financial resources had significant effects on urban traffic ecological resilience. Finally, we gave some suggestions for improving the urban traffic ecological resilience in Chinese cities as well as other developing countries in the world.