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Modeling the morphology of the intercity road network

  • THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY
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Abstract—

Many aspects of the functioning of the transport network and its impact on the socioeconomic development of a territory significantly depend on its morphology. In particular, the morphological features of the network underlie the network effects, which can lead to significant changes in transport costs (both downward and upward) with minor modifications to the network. The article analyzes the factors most significant for the morphology of the intercity transport network and presents a mathematical description of the mechanisms for the realization of their influence. It is shown that the key factor is the location of network vertices in space, and a two-parameter family of models is proposed that can generate networks close to real ones, only based on information about the spatial location of their vertices. Implementation of the proposed model is demonstrated using the intercity highway network in Belarus. For this network, the optimal parameter values were selected, and it was shown that the resulting model is quite close to the original network.

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Notes

  1. Precise definitions and descriptions of the terms “dendrites” and “cycles” in relation to transport networks can be found in [9].

  2. The standard enumeration method used to minimize the function φ(a, b) consists in the two-dimensional range of arguments a and b being covered by a mesh with a cell size much smaller than the area under consideration. Then, the values of function φ are calculated at the grid nodes and the smallest of them is selected. The accuracy of this method depends on the cell size.

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Funding

The article was prepared in accordance with the R&D Plan of Ural State University of Railway Transport (R&D topic no. АААА-А20-120042190035-7).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ural State University of Railway Transport, 620034, Yekaterinburg, Russia

    A. V. Martynenko

  2. Institute of Economics, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 620014, Yekaterinburg, Russia

    A. V. Martynenko

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  1. A. V. Martynenko
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Correspondence to A. V. Martynenko.

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Martynenko, A.V. Modeling the morphology of the intercity road network. Reg. Res. Russ. 11, 9–17 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S207997052101010X

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S207997052101010X

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