Comparative Analysis on Topological Structures of Urban Street Networks

Abstract

Street systems are the backbone of cities. With global urbanization and economic development, street systems have undergone significant development along with the growth of cities. In this paper, the authors select three cities with varying sizes, histories, locations, and growth dynamics: Stockholm, Toronto, and Nanjing. We analyze topological structures of their public street systems based on GIS and complex network theory. Considering the planarity of street systems, we first calculate various topological measures, including α, β, and γ indices, and density. This is followed by comparing three centrality measures, i.e., degree, betweenness, and closeness in complex network theory. In this part, we investigate these characteristics of nodes and edges in a primal representation, and discuss their relations with urban growth mechanisms.

Influence of Relief Degree of Land Surface on Street Network Complexity in China

“…For instance, the topography of China is high in the west and low in the east, and is complex and diverse, forming three levels of steps from west to east: The western part of the country has the highest terrain, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as the "Roof of the World", which is the first step, and is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains, Qilian Mountains, Hengduan Mountains and the second step; the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau east to the Daxinganling Mountains, Taihang Mountains, Wushan Mountains and Xuefeng Mountains is the second step, generally at an altitude of 1000-2000 m, mainly composed of mountains, plateaus and basins; the wide plains and hills of eastern China are the third step. Secondly, the street system has developed significantly with the growth of cities since the implementation of China's reform and open policy [35], but few studies have described the street network patterns of Chinese cities as a whole. Thirdly, with over 300 prefectures in China, it greatly helps us to explore whether the pattern of China's street network is limited by the topography at a macro level.…”

A Geometric Classification of World Urban Road Networks

“…Network Science is a discipline devoted to the study of networks [29,30] that has been heavily applied to study systems of all kinds [31,32], and in particular complex systems such as road systems [13,24,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. Urban road networks are generally modelled as spatial and planar networks [44].…”

“…In this article, we focus on the spatial structure of transport road networks because their physical structure can play an important role on their overall performance [7] and in how cities are shaped [8,9]. Moreover, road networks have been studied to understand travel behavior [10][11][12], travel dynamics [13,14], public health [15,16], accessibility [17][18][19], and resilience [20][21][22][23] to name a few. More broadly, the physical structure of urban road networks can influence the performance in many different aspects of a city [24].…”

On Fundamental Principles of the Optimal Number and Location of Loading Bays in Urban Areas

“…Both methodologies take a cell of 1 km 2 as a basic unit for identification of urban areas and this unit should, therefore, be understood also as the main element for the modelling purposes of urban freight deliveries. The topology of the urban road network has been studied by many researchers (Lin, Ban 2017;Strano et al 2013;Tsiotas, Polyzos 2017). Generally, the following characteristics of urban road networks are noted: heterogeneity (very few road sections interact with each other), planarity (roads tend to be parallel more than forming triangles), validity of power low (the majority of road sections are short in distance, especially in city centres) and density (high density of intersections and many roads in urban areas).…”