Urban Road Network Evolution to Maximize the Capacity

AbstractUrban network planning efforts is to achieve the maximum capacity under a certain road investment. As we all know that a good decision can save cost and increase the capacity of the total network. In our previous study, a new computational model of urban spatial evolution has been studied, where people migrate between urban locations, balancing their tendency to explore with their preferential wish to join existing communities. Based on the previous results, this paper presents an urban network evolution model considering road investment and capacity. When a new community is generated, decision-makers will plan to investigate the road construction according to the important degree. Generally speaking, high investment leads to a high road level and big capacity. The decision's objective is to maximum the capacity of the road. In order to achieve this goal, our model focuses on optimal road network, considering maximum capacity under the limited investment, and can determine which road to build and what level of the road. A simulation model is developed to include the topology of road evolution, the structure of road level, and the changes of network capacity over time. Specially, we also simulate the road network evolution with different initialization (with one center and two centers). On one hand, simulation results show that the high investment can bring the big capacity, and different structures can be gain with different initialization. On the other hand, it is also concluded that more centers can improve the traffic capacity of road network