Exploring the Network Accessibility in the Airport Regions of India: Case Study of Bagdogra Airport, West Bengal

Transportation network development is considered to be one of the keys to modernization and development. Airports are emerging as new hubs of development. Airport corridors are the upcoming economic corridors being a connection between the airport and the host city through highways, expressways, and railways, where infrastructure is planned with more public involvement. At a regional scale, Aerotropolis is an extrapolation of the airport city, to the surroundings, where the reciprocation of the airport city can be seen in terms of amenities, services, industries, residences, and thematic and logistic spaces. For linking the airport for better access, an efficient road network is inevitable in the country. Connectivity measures are an indicator of the performance of airline networks, airports and regions which allow policymakers and industry professionals to benchmark and monitor the network performance against that of other airports, airline networks and regions and plan the regions accordingly. This paper seeks to derive the landside connectivity for the road network of different tiers of airports in their influence area and identify the regions that are most and least accessible in the Indian scenario. In order to explore connectivity and accessibility, the regions are ranked on the basis of some of the indices such as alpha, beta, Gama, Konig no. etc. Further, the study comprehends the case study of Bagdogra Airport, Siliguri, being the least accessible region as per the landside connectivity. The study of landside connectivity includes a GIS-based analysis of links and nodes with the help of graph theory and centrality indices. Results derived indicates the impact of airport connectivity in the identified influence area of the region, the centrality indices increase with a decrease in distance from the airport. The results also indicate the emergence of important nodes and links, probing towards the need for comprehensive planning for new airport regions for better accessibility and induced development of the region