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Urban road networks — spatial networks with universal geometric features?

A case study on Germany’s largest cities

  • Regular Article
  • Focus Section on Frontiers in Network Science: Advances and Applications
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Abstract

Urban road networks have distinct geometric properties that are partially determined by their (quasi-) two-dimensional structure. In this work, we study these properties for 20 of the largest German cities. We find that the small-scale geometry of all examined road networks is extremely similar. The object-size distributions of road segments and the resulting cellular structures are characterised by heavy tails. As a specific feature, a large degree of rectangularity is observed in all networks, with link angle distributions approximately described by stretched exponential functions. We present a rigorous statistical analysis of the main geometric characteristics and discuss their mutual interrelationships. Our results demonstrate the fundamental importance of cost-efficiency constraints for the time evolution of urban road networks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Transport and Economics, Dresden University of Technology, Würzburger Str. 35, 01187, Dresden, Germany

    S. H. Y. Chan, R. V. Donner & S. Lämmer

  2. Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong

    S. H. Y. Chan

  3. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412, Potsdam, Germany

    R. V. Donner

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  1. S. H. Y. Chan
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  2. R. V. Donner
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  3. S. Lämmer
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Correspondence to R. V. Donner.

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Chan, S.H.Y., Donner, R.V. & Lämmer, S. Urban road networks — spatial networks with universal geometric features?. Eur. Phys. J. B 84, 563–577 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2011-10889-3

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