Optimizing Road Networks in Small and Medium-sized Cities: A Multidimensional Trade-off between Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6919/ICJE.202606_12(6).0006Keywords:
Road Network Hierarchy; Multi-Criteria Evaluation; Environmental Externalities; CRITIC Weighting; Transit Priority; Small and Medium- Sized Cities; Transportation Carbon Emissions; Traffic Noise.Abstract
The unreasonable structure of the road network has become a significant bottleneck restricting the sustainable development of transportation systems in small - medium cities. This paper is based on road network grading theory and integrates a multi-dimensional performance evaluation framework to address the common problem of the "inverted pyramid" structure and its environmental impacts. We first establish a theoretical road network model that follows a pyramid structure. In order to reconcile the contradiction between public transit priority and travel efficiency, we put forward a new type of functional segmentation strategy of the arterial road system, which can divide it into "passenger-oriented" and "freight-oriented" corridors. A set of 12 second-order indicators is included under the first-order dimensions of structure, efficiency, equity, resilience, and environmental impact. The weights of these indicators are quantified using an improved hierarchical CRITIC objective weighting method. We simulate and analyse three road network density scenarios (a base case of 6.8 km/km2, a plan density of 12.8 km/km2, and a high density benchmark of 21.1 km/km2) for a virtual case city that has been calibrated with empirical data. The results show a significant deviation between environmental and efficiency objectives. The planned densification scenario (12.8 km/km2) achieves the best overall performance (score: 0.819), lower than 15.2% compared to the baseline. However, this situation also leads to an increase in noise, and corresponding noise reduction measures need to be taken. Pursuing excessive density (21.1 km/km2) leads to decreased efficiency of resource utilization and intensified noise pollution. This study provides a systematic decision-support tool and the theoretical basis for road network optimization design, public transportation priority, and reducing environmental externality effects of small- to medium-sized cities.
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