Township Development and Transport Hub Level: Analysis by Remote Sensing of Nighttime Light

Abstract

The coordinated development of township and city transportation is expected to reach new heights in the global sustainable transport plans of emerging economies. However, few studies have focused on the transport hub features considering marginal administrative division. This study examines the correlation between township development and hub level by using remote sensing of nightlight imagery. Systematically corrected satellite images of Global NPP-VIIRS Nighttime lights were selected as experimental data. Furthermore, the township hub level model and nighttime light indices were established to demonstrate the correlation characteristics of 6671 townships. Results show that the development level of road transport for a considerable number of townships is positively correlated with the hub level. The positively correlated townships show a spatial clustering distribution. In contrast, several negative correlations and random townships are related to the radiation of adjacent city growth poles and township special industrial characteristics. Nighttime light data can compensate for the difficulty in obtaining socioeconomic data below the prefecture level from a multiscale micro perspective and statistical caliber differences. These findings can be proven to be valuable to planners and designers of township development and regional transport.