Abstract
To better guide the sustainable developing of freight transport aligning with environmental objectives it is of strategic importance to capture freight transportation characteristics more realistically. This paper characterizes freight transportation by using a complex network approach from multidimensional perspectives based on freight vehicle trips data. We first build two subnetworks from prefecture-level city-scale and county-level city-scale. Subsequently, network analysis indices based on complex network theory were applied to examine the topological structure and complexity of the freight transportation networks. Furthermore, the community detection method is introduced to reveal the networks’ clustering characteristics. The findings show that the prefecture-level city-scale network and the county-level city-scale network both have obvious small-world network characteristics, but the prefecture-level city-scale network has higher operating efficiency for goods movement. Additionally, the influence of the cross-border effect on the freight transportation network was verified. In terms of the community structure, the freight network shows distinct clustering features only at the county-level city-scale.
Highlights
Humankind’s effect on the environment has come to an irreversible stage [1]
We propose an improved freight network building process that depicts more realistic freight activities and spatial interactions, and it provides evidence and findings regarding the impact of the cross-border effect on the topological structure of networks in China
Considering the important role of cross-border freight flows in this study, this study developed a modified process to establish freight networks by referring to the approach provided by
Summary
Humankind’s effect on the environment has come to an irreversible stage [1]. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018, China’s energy consumption accounts for 23.2% of global consumption and 33.6% of global growth during the last year. In this atmosphere, being environmental sustainability-oriented has become a key strategy for governments. Many empirical studies have proven that transportation is the most crucial of the determinants (e.g., the economy, land use, population, and employment) of urban development because it provides mobility for people and goods and influences the growth patterns of economic activity through changing accessibility [2,3,4] It is the main contributor of emission. Environmental sustainability-oriented policies in the freight transport sector are essential
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