Characterizing broken links on national and local expressways in Chinese city-regions

Abstract

ABSTRACT While massive resources have been invested in China to improve intercity connectivity and boost economic growth, many short segments of planned but unfinished expressways exist in China’s city-regions. Such broken or missing links have been observed in Europe, the United States and, more recently, China. This study provides an exploratory analysis of broken links in both national and local expressways in China. Specifically, it develops a procedure to identify short expressway links that have been planned but unfinished, and associates the presence of broken links in individual cities with a number of socioeconomic, geographical and political factors.