PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2015, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (6): 665-675.doi: 10.18306/dlkxjz.2015.06.002

• Urban and Transport Geography • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Road transport superiority degree and impact on economic growth in the concentrated contiguous severe poverty areas in China

Wulin WANG1, Wenyue YANG1, Xiaoshu CAO1,2,*()   

  1. 1. School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
    2. Institute of Transport Geography and Spatial Planning, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062, China
  • Received:2014-11-01 Revised:2015-03-01 Online:2015-06-15 Published:2015-06-15
  • Contact: Xiaoshu CAO E-mail:caoxsh@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Abstract:

This research measured road transport superiority degree of the 680 counties (county-level cities and districts) in the 14 concentrated contiguous severe poverty areas of China in 2012 by integrating the indices of road network density, city proximity, and weighted average travel time, and made a comprehensive evaluation of their spatial patterns. It then chose the optimal model of SEM to explore the impact of road transport superiority degree on economic growth. The results show that: (1) With regard to road network density, city proximity, and weighted average travel time, there is a large difference among the 680 counties (county-level cities and districts) in the 14 concentrated contiguous severe poverty areas. Road transport superiority degree of the 680 counties (county-level cities and districts) presents a right-skewed normal distribution. (2) Road transport superiority degree is divided into four classes from good to bad. The first (best) class includes the Dabie Mountain area, Luoxiao Mountain area, Lvliang Mountain area, and Yanshan-Taihang Mountain area; the second class includes the Qinba Mountain area, Liupan Mountain area, Wuling Mountain area, Wumeng Mountain area, Dian-Gui-Qian Rocky Desertification area; the third class contains the western Yunnan border mountain areas, the Great Khingan South Mountain area, and the Tibetan area in four provinces; the rest of the 14 concentrated contiguous severe poverty areas belong to the fourth (worse) class, which includes Tibet and three prefectures of southern Xinjiang. (3) The fitness of the SEM model is superior compared to the OLS model and the SLM model. The impact of road transport superiority degree on economic growth is clearly significant: every increase of one percentage point in road transport superiority degree has a contribution of 0.193% on economic growth. Therefore improving road network density can enhance road transport superiority degree and promote local and regional economic growth.

Key words: road transport superiority degree, concentrated contiguous severe poverty area, spatial pattern, impacts, China