Comparative Study of the Degree of Linkage between City Shape and Railway Network among Worldwide Major Cities

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an index of the degree of linkage between city shape and railway network, as a method for measuring how well the spatial pattern of urban development is supported by public transportation like railway network. We also measure the degree of linkage for targeted forty major cities in the world, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou as Chinese major cities, grasping urban expansion by using satellite images and open data. We find out, for example, that Chinese cities show relatively low degree of linkage compared with cities in developed countries, and that the typical pattern of the pass due to the delay of railway network construction from the time-series change of the degree of linkage can be observed. We also try to identify area that contributes to urban compaction by average travel time and the degree of linkage.