# Measurement Method of Comprehensive Transportation Development Quality Based on Transportation Efficiency

Authors: Jiahao Zhan; Shengwen Yang; Xueyin Wang; Ting Fan
Journal: Journal of Advanced Transportation
 (2023)

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## Abstract

Transportation is the forerunner of economic and social development. Therefore, the high-quality development of comprehensive transportation is of great significance to ensure overall economic and social progress and the smooth implementation of major national strategies. The essence of high-quality development in transportation is to realize the optimal allocation of transportation resources. This study handles two aspects. First, the factors that reflect the quality of comprehensive transportation development are defined and analyzed, and an evaluation system is proposed to build China’s comprehensive transportation development quality with transportation efficiency as the core is proposed, taking into account transportation infrastructure and transportation scale. Second, the static comprehensive evaluation value is calculated by the entropy weight method, and then the incentive control model is constructed by introducing incentive factors to achieve a dynamic comprehensive evaluation of comprehensive transportation development. The research results not only propose new indicators but also evaluate different modes of transportation within the same dimension. The results show that the quality of comprehensive transportation development in China is generally on the rise, but there are obvious regional differences. The proposed model is derived from evaluation cases in transportation-related fields and has not yet been applied in the transportation field. It can help understand the development status of the industry and assist in policy formulation.


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## Body

## 1. Introduction

Promoting the high quality and high efficiency development of an integrated transportation system, realizing the complementary advantages of various modes of transportation, and improving the supporting role of an integrated transportation system for social and economic development are the key issues that need to be solved in China’s transportation industry at present. A comprehensive and systematic evaluation of the technical and economic characteristics of the entire integrated transportation system in a region is an indispensable means to promote its scientific development. It is not only conducive to a more reasonable layout of integrated transportation but also conducive to the optimization of transportation resource allocation. To achieve comprehensive development of the country, we must ensure the high-quality development of integrated transport in all regions. An integrated transportation system is defined as a transport complex in which the various modes of transport are divided, organically integrated, connected, and reasonably laid out according to their technical and economic characteristics, within the scope of socialized transport and in a unified transport process. From the perspective of resource allocation, its high-quality development is to achieve a rational division of labor and effective collaboration among various modes of transport so that the transport capacity of the entire system can be optimized to meet transport needs to the maximum extent. Transport efficiency is defined as the maximization of profit at the minimum cost in the process of transport production, which corresponds to the purpose of optimal resource allocation. We conclude that the essence of high-quality transport development is the issue of efficient governance under the premise of ensuring safety. Therefore, it is necessary to measure comprehensive transportation and quantify the quality of industry development. While considering the layout of transportation infrastructure and the scale of transportation, we should also focus on comprehensive transportation efficiency.This study aims to propose a new perspective for the evaluation of transport development. This method uses microlevel indicators to define macrolevel transport efficiency, taking into account transport infrastructure and volume scale, and combines a dynamic evaluation model based on entropy to achieve a dynamic evaluation of integrated transport. The specific methods to determine it, including the index set and measurement model, and their practical application will be described in the following section. The formulation of transportation policies should fully consider the development of various transportation means. The methods proposed in this study can provide support for policy formulation.


## 2. Literature Review

China’s economic development has changed from high-speed growth to high-quality growth, and the transport industry, as the “artery” of national economic growth, also needs to “improve quality and increase efficiency”. In order to accurately judge the quality of integrated transport development, it is necessary to measure the quality of integrated transport development. A great deal of practical exploration has been carried out from different perspectives by relevant scholars with respect to the study of transport measurement. Some literature has elaborated on the connotation of high-quality development of comprehensive transport in China, based on the outline for the construction of a strong transportation country, and has analyzed in depth the connotation of high-quality development of transportation and the requirements of the times for high-quality development of transportation in the context of China’s national conditions [1]. A number of studies have examined the level of comprehensive transport services. Some scholars have made improvements on the Transport Services Output Index (TSI) [2] proposed by American scholars to study the production index of transport services in China [3–5]. In addition to measuring transport services, scholars have also modelled and analyzed the reliability [6] and service quality [7, 8] of transport services. A number of papers have measured the development of integrated regional transport and analyzed the extent to which various modes of transport have an impact on integrated transport [9]. A comprehensive evaluation model was further constructed for freight [10] and passengers [11]. There are a relatively large number of studies measuring transport efficiency. For example, the literature proposes a “freight transport energy productivity” indicator to quantify the freight productivity of current and future freight systems and to measure the efficiency of freight networks [12] and proposes a method to determine the weights of the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) in the context of double frontier Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) measures freight efficiency [13], introduces the SBM-undesirable model to systematically analyze the time-series evolution of comprehensive transport efficiency in China [14], and proposes a DEA model and a Tobit regression model to measure the geographical comprehensive transport efficiency [15]. In addition, some literature has also addressed the measurement of road and rail transport efficiency [16–18] and summarized the research on civil aviation transport efficiency [19]. Some literature has examined green travel and energy efficiency in integrated transport. For example, the literature constructs a system model for energy savings and emission reduction in the transport industry through system dynamics and summarizes the technical paths that are most conducive to energy savings and emission reduction [20], constructs a comprehensive evaluation model for green transport suitable for mountainous cities [21], and combines a superefficiency relaxation-based measurement (Super-SBM) model and the Malmquist index to assess the static and dynamic carbon emission efficiency of the logistics industry [22]. The relationship between transport and the economy has been studied in a number of papers, with the literature proposing an analytical approach to examine the impact of transport and the economy on short-line railways [23], constructing an evaluation system to study the adaptation of regional transport to the economy [24], and constructing a model of international rail freight in China and Europe through system dynamics to analyze the feedback relationship between rail freight and economic trade [25]. Several papers have assessed transport safety, with the literature adding safety indicators as undesirable outputs of transport efficiency DEA models, which can reflect more problems than conventional measurements [26]. The literature assesses railway and maritime transport safety production and risk management [27–29], and the evaluation system of risk factors is constructed by means of fault tree analysis to analyze the causes of accidents in urban rail transport [30].In the relevant research on the transportation evaluation index, the construction of a measurement system based on transport prices combined with transport volumes circumvents the evaluation of transport efficiency dimensions [3–5], and the indicators chosen focus on changes in scale, which cannot accurately reflect the quality of development. The commonly used transportation efficiency evaluation mainly adopts input and output indicators [13, 15–19], but the acquisition of input indicators is not complete, and there is an obvious lag between input and output in the field of transportation. It is difficult to directly and accurately reflect the current state of transportation efficiency by using input and output indicators to evaluate it. Because of changes and fluctuations that cannot be directly measured, descriptions of the nature of transportation efficiency are not direct and accurate enough. Indicators for infrastructure and development scale use rough absolute value data without considering regional geography and population. The evaluation of transport safety mainly focuses on the assessment of safety risks of personnel, equipment, management, and environment [25–28], which mostly relies on artificially developed “severity levels,” resulting in relatively subjective evaluation results and relatively few official statistics published on transport. Therefore, this paper does not include transportation safety evaluation indicators when constructing the measurement system. Based on the above discussion and aiming at the essential characteristics of high-quality development of comprehensive transportation, this paper focuses on improving transportation efficiency while taking into account the capacity and level of transportation services, that is, taking the infrastructure utilization efficiency index as the core. Then, considering the infrastructure distribution and regional per capita transportation scale index, it constructs an evaluation index and value calculation model for the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation and analyses the insufficient development of comprehensive transportation in China.


## 3. Materials and Methods

In order to scientifically and accurately determine the quality of comprehensive transportation development in a country or region, relevant factors affecting transportation development must first be identified. Subsequently, it is necessary to accurately select the indicators, including quantitative indicators, to characterize these factors. Then, identify a comprehensive, universal, and applicable method to assess the potential of a particular field. Professional procedures and scientific methods must be used in this process, and some of the methods in the papers [29–31] provide inspiration. Subsequently, these methods will be applied to comprehensive transportation evaluation practice in China. It contains two parts:(a)
One part is to analyze the factors affecting the level of development and quality of development of integrated transportation by controlling the essence of integrated transportation and construct a set of evaluation indicators for high-quality development, all details of which are shown in Section3.1.(b)
The other part is to quote the dynamic comprehensive evaluation method, combining the entropy value method with the two-way incentive model, introducing the incentive factor on the basis of static comprehensive evaluation, constructing the incentive control model, and combining the time dimension to realize the dynamic evaluation of regional comprehensive transportation development, all the details are shown in Section3.2.


### 3.1. Analysis and Description of Factors Influencing the Comprehensive Transportation

To evaluate the level of high-quality development of integrated transport, we must first grasp the essence of high-quality development of integrated transport and analyze the factors affecting the level and quality of development of integrated transport. An integrated transport system is a complex system consisting of five modes of transport road, railroad, water, civil aviation, and pipeline, as well as the corresponding facilities, scale, efficiency, safety, and other influencing factors. The development of comprehensive transportation is a dynamic process, and the core factors, such as economic and social issues, transportation technology and demand characteristics, are constantly changing. Therefore, the evaluation system should comprehensively and objectively reflect the current state of comprehensive transportation development as well as the associated scientific trends and goals so that it can lead future development. The high-quality development of integrated transportation is essentially intended to achieve the efficient operation of various modes of transportation while ensuring safety. China’s latest transport development plan states that “the goal of high-quality integrated transport development is to provide a better network of facilities, more efficient transport services, more advanced technology and equipment, in addition to more reliable safety and security, more sustainable development models, and more complete governance capabilities,” and that “high-quality development emphasizes quality and efficiency changes along with scale growth.” We believe that this has certain reference significance.To achieve a measure of the level of quality development in integrated transport, it is necessary to first consider the composition of the integrated transport sector. Comprehensive transportation is composed of various modes of transportation, such as road, railroad, waterway, and civil aviation. Each mode of transportation has its own characteristics and contributes differently to the development of integrated transportation. Therefore, it is necessary to screen the evaluation indicators of each transport mode separately to ensure the comprehensiveness of the evaluation of integrated transport at the level of transport modes.Second, it is necessary to determine the dimensions of indicators that affect the quality development of integrated transport, specifically in terms of infrastructure, capacity scale, transport efficiency, safety assessment, and other dimensions.(a)
Infrastructure is a prerequisite for the development of transport behavior, and it determines the upper limit of the level of transport development. The development of regional transport infrastructure determines the scale and quality of transport development, while geographical conditions should also be taken into account. In evaluating the development of regional integrated transport infrastructure, it is necessary to take into account the regional geographical area, which is subdivided into road network density, railway network density, port berths, and airport service area coverage (100 km radius). The larger the index value, the better the transportation development in the region.(b)
The scale of transportation can intuitively reflect the volume of comprehensive transport development, but using the volume indicator cannot reflect the quality of regional comprehensive transport development. The number of residents as a population in the region is also one of the important factors affecting the absolute value of traffic, so it is necessary to introduce the population factor in the scale dimension of traffic. When evaluating the development of a regional comprehensive transportation volume scale, population factors should also be considered. This dimension is subdivided into four modes of transport for per capita passenger and cargo traffic indicators. The greater the per capita volume, the better the transportation development in the region.(c)
Transportation efficiency is defined as obtaining maximum profit with minimum cost in the process of transportation, and the improvement of efficiency helps optimize resource allocation, achieve lower transportation costs, and improve the quality of development. In the evaluation of the development of regional comprehensive transportation volume, the passenger and cargo turnover of unit transportation facilities is used to characterize the passenger and cargo turnover of highways and waterways. Due to the particularity of their management modes, railways, and civil aviation are characterized by passenger and cargo turnover, unit mileage turnover, and unit take-off and landing. The higher the unit turnover, the better the development of transportation efficiency in the region.(d)
The security dimension relies on artificially developed “severity levels” for evaluation, resulting in relatively subjective evaluation results. Moreover, there are few indicators of transportation safety in the officially published statistics, so this paper does not include transportation safety evaluation indicators when constructing the measurement system.The measurement of the quality of comprehensive transport development is considered from several aspects of infrastructure construction, capacity scale, and transport efficiency. We focus not only on the absolute volume but also taking into account regional geographic and demographic factors. In the construction of the evaluation system, due to the differences between regions, the absolute quantity indicators cannot reliably reflect the high-quality development of a comprehensive transportation industry among different regions, so the area of regional administrative divisions and the number of residents as a population are combined with the absolute quantity indicators of infrastructure and development scale dimensions, respectively, to obtain the relative evaluation indicators and build the index system.Based on this understanding, this study constructs a system to measure the level of high-quality development of a comprehensive transportation industry, which is mainly based on transportation efficiency and supplemented by infrastructure and capacity scale. The system includes four modes of transportation: road, railroad, waterway, and civil aviation, among which pipeline transportation is not considered for the time being due to its special characteristics, as shown in Table1.Table 1
Measurement index system of comprehensive transportation development level.
Target levelTier 1 indicatorsTier 2 indicatorsNoteComprehensive transportationInfrastructureDensity of the road networkRatio of total road length to total area of the regionDensity of the railroad networkRatio of total railroad length to total area of the regionNumber of berths in a portThe number of loading and unloading vessels that the port can accommodateAirport service area coverageRatio of airport service area to national land areaScale of developmentPer capita road passenger trafficRatio of road passenger traffic to resident populationPer capita road freight volumeRatio of road freight traffic to resident populationPer capita rail passenger trafficRatio of railroad passenger traffic to resident populationPer capita rail freight volumeRatio of rail freight traffic to resident populationPer capita waterway passenger trafficRatio of waterway passenger traffic to resident populationPer capita waterway freight volumeRatio of waterborne cargo traffic to resident populationPer capita civil aviation passenger throughputRatio of passenger throughput at civil airports to resident populationPer capita air cargo and mail throughputRatio of cargo and mail throughput of civil airports to resident populationTransportation efficiencyHighway passenger transportation facility utilization efficiencyRatio of road passenger turnover to passenger capacityHighway freight facility utilization efficiencyRatio of road freight turnover to load capacityRailroad passenger facility utilization efficiencyRatio of railroad passenger turnover to operating mileageRail freight facility utilization efficiencyRatio of railroad freight turnover to miles operatedWaterway passenger transport facility utilization efficiencyRatio of waterway passenger turnover to ship passenger capacityWaterway freight facility utilization efficiencyRatio of waterway freight turnover to ship’s capacityCivil aviation passenger facility utilization efficiencyRatio of civil aviation passenger throughput to landings and take-offsCivil aviation freight facility utilization efficiencyRatio of civil air freight and mail throughput to landings and take-offs


### 3.2. Entropy-Bidirectional Excitation Model

The purpose of the multiindex comprehensive evaluation is to combine the information of multiple indicators that reflect the different attributes of the research object to obtain a comprehensive index, which reflects the overall development of the evaluated object [31]. Zhang [32] introduced the “implicit incentive” factor into the original “explicit incentive” model and constructed a dynamic, comprehensive evaluation method based on the dual incentive model. The expanded method can better describe and reflect the dynamic development of the evaluated object in a period of time. This paper draws on the two-way incentive comprehensive evaluation method based on entropy weight [31–33] and applies it to the study of high-quality development measurement of the comprehensive transportation industry. The entropy weighting method enables an objective weighting of indicators based on the information entropy of the indicator data. The two-way incentive model is an incentive control model that enables comprehensive evaluation by introducing advantageous and disadvantageous excitation factors and better reflects the development of the evaluated subject than a linear weighting model.The calculation process of the model is divided into four steps: (1) Normalization of the evaluation data. The purpose of this step is to make the indicator data dimensionless. (2) Calculation of weighting scores by entropy. The weighting score is determined by calculating the entropy value of each indicator. (3) Initial assessment. The dimensionless index values are linearly weighted to obtain an initial evaluation value. (4) Two-way incentive comprehensive evaluation model. The initial evaluation value is used as an input to calculate the advantageous and disadvantageous excitation factors and to achieve a comprehensive evaluation of the study population. The specific calculation process is as follows.Step 1: Normalization of the evaluation data.First, the index data are standardized, and the indicator valuexij is preprocessed to obtain x′ij with the following equation:(1)xij′=xij−mjMj−mj,j=1,2,⋯,m,whereMj=maxxij, mj=minxij, and xij′ is the normalized value of the positive indicator. A nonnegative translation of the normalized results is then performed.Step 2: Calculation of weighting scores by entropy.Assuming that there aren years to be evaluated and m evaluation indicators, the matrix is constructed as follows:(2)X′=x′11x′12x′21x′22⋯⋯x′1mx′2m⋮⋮⋱⋮x′n1x′n2⋯x′nm,wherexij is the indicator value. The data of 20 indicators from 2000 to 2019 are used to find the weights, i.e., n = 20 and m = 20.Based on the normalization matrixX′, the information entropy Ej of each indicator is calculated, and the formula is as follows:(3)Ej=−1lnn∑i=1nPijlnPij,Pij=zij∑i=1nzij,i=1,2,⋯,n,j=1,2,⋯,m.The information entropyEj obtained from equation (3) is used to calculate the weight αj of each indicator, and the formula is as follows:(4)αj=1−Ej∑j=1m1−Ej,j=1,2,⋯,m.Step 3: Initial assessment.Based on the weights of the indicators calculated by the entropy weighting method, the initial comprehensive evaluation values of all evaluated regions at timetT are calculated.(5)yjtT=αjXij.Step 4: Two-way incentive, comprehensive evaluation method.The evaluation matrix is constructed using the initial evaluation values(6)Y=y1t1y1t2y2t1y2t2⋯y1tTy2tT⋮⋮⋱⋮ynt1ynt2⋯yntT.The average maximum gainηmax, average minimum gain ηmin, and average gain η¯ are calculated, and the formulae are as follows:(7)ηmax=maxi1T−1∑k=1T−1yitk+1−yitk,ηmin=mini1T−1∑k=1T−1yitk+1−yitk,η¯=1nT−1∑i=1n∑k=1T−1yitk+1−yitk.The merit gain levelsη+ and η− of the evaluation results are then calculated(8)η+=η¯+ηmax−η¯k+,η−=η¯−η¯−ηmink−,wherek+,k−∈ (0, 1) represent the floating coefficient of the advantageous and disadvantageous gains, respectively. In this study, k+ =  k− = 0.5.Through the advantageous and disadvantageous gain levelsη+andη−, the advantageous and disadvantageous excitation values yi+tk and yi−tk are calculated(9)yi+tk=η++yitk−1yi−tk=yitk−1+η−,k=2,3,…,T.By using the optimal excitation quantityyi+tk minus the preliminary comprehensive evaluation value yitk, the optimal gain quantity vi+tk is obtained, while the inferior gain quantity vi−tk remains the same. This result can be obtained by using the preliminary comprehensive evaluation value yitk minus the inferior excitation quantity yi−tk. The calculation formula is as follows:(10)vi+tk=yi+tk−yitk,yi+tk>yitk,0,others,(11)vi−tk=yitk−yi−tk,yitk>yi−tk,0,others.Whenk is 1, vi+t1=vi−t1=0.According to the obtained advantageous and disadvantageous gainsvi+tk and vi−tk, the superior and inferior excitation factors q+ and q−, respectively, are calculated as follows:(12)r=q+∑i=1n∑k=1Tvi+tkq−∑i=1n∑k=1Tvi−tkq++q−=1,r∈R+,whererr∈R+ represents the proportional relationship between the superior and inferior incentive values; in this paper, r=1.According to the abovementioned calculation results, the two-way incentive comprehensive evaluation value of the comprehensive transportation high-quality development level of regioni in year tk is calculated as follows:(13)zitk=q+vi+tk+yitk−q−vi−tk.


## 3.1. Analysis and Description of Factors Influencing the Comprehensive Transportation

To evaluate the level of high-quality development of integrated transport, we must first grasp the essence of high-quality development of integrated transport and analyze the factors affecting the level and quality of development of integrated transport. An integrated transport system is a complex system consisting of five modes of transport road, railroad, water, civil aviation, and pipeline, as well as the corresponding facilities, scale, efficiency, safety, and other influencing factors. The development of comprehensive transportation is a dynamic process, and the core factors, such as economic and social issues, transportation technology and demand characteristics, are constantly changing. Therefore, the evaluation system should comprehensively and objectively reflect the current state of comprehensive transportation development as well as the associated scientific trends and goals so that it can lead future development. The high-quality development of integrated transportation is essentially intended to achieve the efficient operation of various modes of transportation while ensuring safety. China’s latest transport development plan states that “the goal of high-quality integrated transport development is to provide a better network of facilities, more efficient transport services, more advanced technology and equipment, in addition to more reliable safety and security, more sustainable development models, and more complete governance capabilities,” and that “high-quality development emphasizes quality and efficiency changes along with scale growth.” We believe that this has certain reference significance.To achieve a measure of the level of quality development in integrated transport, it is necessary to first consider the composition of the integrated transport sector. Comprehensive transportation is composed of various modes of transportation, such as road, railroad, waterway, and civil aviation. Each mode of transportation has its own characteristics and contributes differently to the development of integrated transportation. Therefore, it is necessary to screen the evaluation indicators of each transport mode separately to ensure the comprehensiveness of the evaluation of integrated transport at the level of transport modes.Second, it is necessary to determine the dimensions of indicators that affect the quality development of integrated transport, specifically in terms of infrastructure, capacity scale, transport efficiency, safety assessment, and other dimensions.(a)
Infrastructure is a prerequisite for the development of transport behavior, and it determines the upper limit of the level of transport development. The development of regional transport infrastructure determines the scale and quality of transport development, while geographical conditions should also be taken into account. In evaluating the development of regional integrated transport infrastructure, it is necessary to take into account the regional geographical area, which is subdivided into road network density, railway network density, port berths, and airport service area coverage (100 km radius). The larger the index value, the better the transportation development in the region.(b)
The scale of transportation can intuitively reflect the volume of comprehensive transport development, but using the volume indicator cannot reflect the quality of regional comprehensive transport development. The number of residents as a population in the region is also one of the important factors affecting the absolute value of traffic, so it is necessary to introduce the population factor in the scale dimension of traffic. When evaluating the development of a regional comprehensive transportation volume scale, population factors should also be considered. This dimension is subdivided into four modes of transport for per capita passenger and cargo traffic indicators. The greater the per capita volume, the better the transportation development in the region.(c)
Transportation efficiency is defined as obtaining maximum profit with minimum cost in the process of transportation, and the improvement of efficiency helps optimize resource allocation, achieve lower transportation costs, and improve the quality of development. In the evaluation of the development of regional comprehensive transportation volume, the passenger and cargo turnover of unit transportation facilities is used to characterize the passenger and cargo turnover of highways and waterways. Due to the particularity of their management modes, railways, and civil aviation are characterized by passenger and cargo turnover, unit mileage turnover, and unit take-off and landing. The higher the unit turnover, the better the development of transportation efficiency in the region.(d)
The security dimension relies on artificially developed “severity levels” for evaluation, resulting in relatively subjective evaluation results. Moreover, there are few indicators of transportation safety in the officially published statistics, so this paper does not include transportation safety evaluation indicators when constructing the measurement system.The measurement of the quality of comprehensive transport development is considered from several aspects of infrastructure construction, capacity scale, and transport efficiency. We focus not only on the absolute volume but also taking into account regional geographic and demographic factors. In the construction of the evaluation system, due to the differences between regions, the absolute quantity indicators cannot reliably reflect the high-quality development of a comprehensive transportation industry among different regions, so the area of regional administrative divisions and the number of residents as a population are combined with the absolute quantity indicators of infrastructure and development scale dimensions, respectively, to obtain the relative evaluation indicators and build the index system.Based on this understanding, this study constructs a system to measure the level of high-quality development of a comprehensive transportation industry, which is mainly based on transportation efficiency and supplemented by infrastructure and capacity scale. The system includes four modes of transportation: road, railroad, waterway, and civil aviation, among which pipeline transportation is not considered for the time being due to its special characteristics, as shown in Table1.Table 1
Measurement index system of comprehensive transportation development level.
Target levelTier 1 indicatorsTier 2 indicatorsNoteComprehensive transportationInfrastructureDensity of the road networkRatio of total road length to total area of the regionDensity of the railroad networkRatio of total railroad length to total area of the regionNumber of berths in a portThe number of loading and unloading vessels that the port can accommodateAirport service area coverageRatio of airport service area to national land areaScale of developmentPer capita road passenger trafficRatio of road passenger traffic to resident populationPer capita road freight volumeRatio of road freight traffic to resident populationPer capita rail passenger trafficRatio of railroad passenger traffic to resident populationPer capita rail freight volumeRatio of rail freight traffic to resident populationPer capita waterway passenger trafficRatio of waterway passenger traffic to resident populationPer capita waterway freight volumeRatio of waterborne cargo traffic to resident populationPer capita civil aviation passenger throughputRatio of passenger throughput at civil airports to resident populationPer capita air cargo and mail throughputRatio of cargo and mail throughput of civil airports to resident populationTransportation efficiencyHighway passenger transportation facility utilization efficiencyRatio of road passenger turnover to passenger capacityHighway freight facility utilization efficiencyRatio of road freight turnover to load capacityRailroad passenger facility utilization efficiencyRatio of railroad passenger turnover to operating mileageRail freight facility utilization efficiencyRatio of railroad freight turnover to miles operatedWaterway passenger transport facility utilization efficiencyRatio of waterway passenger turnover to ship passenger capacityWaterway freight facility utilization efficiencyRatio of waterway freight turnover to ship’s capacityCivil aviation passenger facility utilization efficiencyRatio of civil aviation passenger throughput to landings and take-offsCivil aviation freight facility utilization efficiencyRatio of civil air freight and mail throughput to landings and take-offs


## 3.2. Entropy-Bidirectional Excitation Model

The purpose of the multiindex comprehensive evaluation is to combine the information of multiple indicators that reflect the different attributes of the research object to obtain a comprehensive index, which reflects the overall development of the evaluated object [31]. Zhang [32] introduced the “implicit incentive” factor into the original “explicit incentive” model and constructed a dynamic, comprehensive evaluation method based on the dual incentive model. The expanded method can better describe and reflect the dynamic development of the evaluated object in a period of time. This paper draws on the two-way incentive comprehensive evaluation method based on entropy weight [31–33] and applies it to the study of high-quality development measurement of the comprehensive transportation industry. The entropy weighting method enables an objective weighting of indicators based on the information entropy of the indicator data. The two-way incentive model is an incentive control model that enables comprehensive evaluation by introducing advantageous and disadvantageous excitation factors and better reflects the development of the evaluated subject than a linear weighting model.The calculation process of the model is divided into four steps: (1) Normalization of the evaluation data. The purpose of this step is to make the indicator data dimensionless. (2) Calculation of weighting scores by entropy. The weighting score is determined by calculating the entropy value of each indicator. (3) Initial assessment. The dimensionless index values are linearly weighted to obtain an initial evaluation value. (4) Two-way incentive comprehensive evaluation model. The initial evaluation value is used as an input to calculate the advantageous and disadvantageous excitation factors and to achieve a comprehensive evaluation of the study population. The specific calculation process is as follows.Step 1: Normalization of the evaluation data.First, the index data are standardized, and the indicator valuexij is preprocessed to obtain x′ij with the following equation:(1)xij′=xij−mjMj−mj,j=1,2,⋯,m,whereMj=maxxij, mj=minxij, and xij′ is the normalized value of the positive indicator. A nonnegative translation of the normalized results is then performed.Step 2: Calculation of weighting scores by entropy.Assuming that there aren years to be evaluated and m evaluation indicators, the matrix is constructed as follows:(2)X′=x′11x′12x′21x′22⋯⋯x′1mx′2m⋮⋮⋱⋮x′n1x′n2⋯x′nm,wherexij is the indicator value. The data of 20 indicators from 2000 to 2019 are used to find the weights, i.e., n = 20 and m = 20.Based on the normalization matrixX′, the information entropy Ej of each indicator is calculated, and the formula is as follows:(3)Ej=−1lnn∑i=1nPijlnPij,Pij=zij∑i=1nzij,i=1,2,⋯,n,j=1,2,⋯,m.The information entropyEj obtained from equation (3) is used to calculate the weight αj of each indicator, and the formula is as follows:(4)αj=1−Ej∑j=1m1−Ej,j=1,2,⋯,m.Step 3: Initial assessment.Based on the weights of the indicators calculated by the entropy weighting method, the initial comprehensive evaluation values of all evaluated regions at timetT are calculated.(5)yjtT=αjXij.Step 4: Two-way incentive, comprehensive evaluation method.The evaluation matrix is constructed using the initial evaluation values(6)Y=y1t1y1t2y2t1y2t2⋯y1tTy2tT⋮⋮⋱⋮ynt1ynt2⋯yntT.The average maximum gainηmax, average minimum gain ηmin, and average gain η¯ are calculated, and the formulae are as follows:(7)ηmax=maxi1T−1∑k=1T−1yitk+1−yitk,ηmin=mini1T−1∑k=1T−1yitk+1−yitk,η¯=1nT−1∑i=1n∑k=1T−1yitk+1−yitk.The merit gain levelsη+ and η− of the evaluation results are then calculated(8)η+=η¯+ηmax−η¯k+,η−=η¯−η¯−ηmink−,wherek+,k−∈ (0, 1) represent the floating coefficient of the advantageous and disadvantageous gains, respectively. In this study, k+ =  k− = 0.5.Through the advantageous and disadvantageous gain levelsη+andη−, the advantageous and disadvantageous excitation values yi+tk and yi−tk are calculated(9)yi+tk=η++yitk−1yi−tk=yitk−1+η−,k=2,3,…,T.By using the optimal excitation quantityyi+tk minus the preliminary comprehensive evaluation value yitk, the optimal gain quantity vi+tk is obtained, while the inferior gain quantity vi−tk remains the same. This result can be obtained by using the preliminary comprehensive evaluation value yitk minus the inferior excitation quantity yi−tk. The calculation formula is as follows:(10)vi+tk=yi+tk−yitk,yi+tk>yitk,0,others,(11)vi−tk=yitk−yi−tk,yitk>yi−tk,0,others.Whenk is 1, vi+t1=vi−t1=0.According to the obtained advantageous and disadvantageous gainsvi+tk and vi−tk, the superior and inferior excitation factors q+ and q−, respectively, are calculated as follows:(12)r=q+∑i=1n∑k=1Tvi+tkq−∑i=1n∑k=1Tvi−tkq++q−=1,r∈R+,whererr∈R+ represents the proportional relationship between the superior and inferior incentive values; in this paper, r=1.According to the abovementioned calculation results, the two-way incentive comprehensive evaluation value of the comprehensive transportation high-quality development level of regioni in year tk is calculated as follows:(13)zitk=q+vi+tk+yitk−q−vi−tk.


## 4. Results and Discussion

According to the above evaluation system and calculation model, the high-quality development levels of comprehensive transportation in the three major regions of East, Central, and West China and in each province are measured. According to these values, a comparative analysis of China’s comprehensive transportation development is obtained.


### 4.1. National Comprehensive Transportation Level

Based on data from the China Statistical Yearbook, the high-quality development of China’s comprehensive transportation and the development level of its infrastructure, scale, and transportation efficiency are evaluated, as shown in Figure1.Figure 1
Chinese comprehensive transport level, 2000–2019.The evaluation results indicated that from 2000 to 2019, the evaluation index of the high-quality development of China’s comprehensive transportation and the two-dimensional development level of infrastructure and development scale showed a gradual upward trend. The development level of infrastructure gradually slowed, the development level of the development scale dimension rapidly increased, and the development level of the transportation efficiency dimension first increased and then decreased. Among them, the infrastructure dimension rating value still maintained its growth trend, indicating that China’s transport infrastructure development was still steadily progressing. The overall value of integrated transport and the scale of development and transport efficiency dimensions decreased in 2013. The data collection on the indicators led to the conclusion that there were two possible reasons for the decrease in the overall assessed value. One possible reason for this was a reduction in the transport volume indicator data due to lower market demand, which in turn led to a lower overall assessed value. Another possible reason was the lower value of the indicator in the revised road and waterway traffic statistics in the 2013 China Transport Sector Economic Statistics Special Survey, which in turn led to a lower overall assessed value. The evaluation index of the high-quality development level of integrated transportation increased from 0.141 in 2000 to 0.224 in 2019, indicating that the integrated transportation industry developed rapidly from 2000 to 2019, especially from 2004 to 2012.In order to test the accuracy of the dynamic evaluation index system, Spearman’s correlation analysis was conducted between the evaluation value results and Chinese Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the correlation between them was obtained as shown in Table2. The Spearman correlation coefficient between the national comprehensive transportation development evaluation value and GDP is 0.830, and the p-value is less than 1%, indicating that the relationship between the two is significantly one of strong correlation.Table 2
National integrated transport development assessment value and GDP correlation coefficient.
Correlation coefficientsIntegrated transport development assessment valueChinese gross domestic productIntegrated transport development assessment value1.000 (0.000∗∗∗)0.830 (0.000∗∗∗)Chinese gross domestic product0.830 (0.000∗∗∗)1.000 (0.000∗∗∗)Note.∗∗∗, ∗∗, and ∗ represent significance levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively.The change trend of the evaluation value in the graph indicates that the values of the three dimensions of infrastructure, development scale, and transportation efficiency all increased, but the change range differed among the three dimensions. The growth rate of the value of the development scale dimension was relatively large, the growth trend of the value of the development level of the infrastructure dimension tended to be stable, and the value of the transportation efficiency dimension generally showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. Since most of the evaluation systems used relative indicators, the obtained national comprehensive transportation development evaluation value can be considered the national average. The results showed that the scale of national comprehensive transportation was expanding daily and infrastructure construction was gradually improving. However, the difference between the eastern and western regions may have been too large. Transportation efficiency has decreased in recent years, and there is still much room for improvement.


### 4.2. Comprehensive Transportation Level for the Three Regions

According to the geographical division of the eastern, central, and western regions, the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in the three regions is evaluated and analyzed. The results are shown in Table3.Table 3
Evaluation results of the comprehensive transportation development level in three regions of China.
Region/YearsEasternCentralWestern20000.1850.1400.10820020.1810.1440.10520040.1900.1570.10520060.2230.1860.12620080.2560.2310.15920100.2820.2450.17120120.2960.2670.19320140.2680.2550.17020150.2660.2530.16920160.2660.2470.17420170.2770.2570.18120180.2830.2620.18920190.2850.2600.187Note. Due to space limitations, the ratings of only even-numbered years are shown prior to 2014.Table3 shows obvious differences in the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in the eastern, central, and western regions. The development trend of comprehensive transportation in the three regions and the country as a whole is basically the same, but the level of development is quite different: the quality of comprehensive transportation development in the eastern region is significantly higher than the national level, and the level of comprehensive transportation development in the central region is basically the same as the national level from 2000 to 2006 and slightly higher than the national level from 2007 to 2019. There is still a large gap between the level of comprehensive transportation development in the western region and the country as a whole, as shown in Figure 2(a). The evaluation value of the infrastructure dimension of comprehensive transportation in the eastern, central, and western regions increased steadily. Since 2005, the gap between the infrastructure development levels in the eastern and central regions has gradually decreased, with both being higher than the national average, while the infrastructure development level in the western region is still at a lower level compared to the eastern and central regions, as shown in Figure 2(b). The dimension of the development scale fell slightly in 2013 due to the change in statistical caliber, but the growth trend remained unchanged. The trend of these two dimensions in the three regions was basically the same as the trend at the national level, as shown in Figure 2(c). The evaluation value of the transportation efficiency dimension for the whole country, the eastern region, the western region, and the central region showed a fluctuating growth trend from 2000 to 2012 but a fluctuating downward trend from 2012 to 2019, as shown in Figure 2(d).Figure 2
Changes in the comprehensive evaluation value of the three dimensions for the whole country and the eastern, central, and western regions. (a) A comprehensive transportation index. (b) Transportation infrastructure. (c) Scale of transportation. (d) Transportation efficiency.
(a)(b)(c)(d)The development trend of the four modes of transportation (highway, railway, waterway, and civil aviation) in the whole country and the three major regions is basically the same, showing an increasing trend, as shown in Figures3(a)–3(d). The quality of transport development of all four modes of transport is at a high level in the eastern region, while the level of development of road and rail transport is higher in the central region than in the eastern and western regions, and the level of development of all four modes of transport is at a low level in the western region.Figure 3
Evaluative value changes in the four modes of transport in the nation as a whole and in the eastern, central, and western regions. (a) Mainland China. (b) Eastern China. (c) Central China. (d) Western China.
(a)(b)(c)(d)As shown in Figures3(a)–3(d), the overall fluctuations of the rail, waterway, and civil aviation indices are relatively stable, with only road transport showing a significantly higher index from 2008 to 2012 than in other years and a decreasing trend after 2013. The road transport index was significantly higher in 2008–2012 than in other years as a result of statistical calibrations. The passenger data for road transport during this period includes some buses and taxis but excludes this component for the remaining years. The data on road freight includes the volume of agricultural vehicles on the road, while the remaining years include only goods vehicles. This resulted in both the scale of transportation and the transport efficiency of road transport being higher in 2008–2012 than in other years. Although the index is high for 2008–2012, using 2008 and 2012 as breakpoints in time, an increasing trend in the road transport index is found for both in 2000–2012. The decreasing trend in the road transport index after 2013 is due to the specificity of road transport compared to other modes of transport. Road transport comprises both operational and non-operational components, and the statistics do not include data on nonoperational passenger and freight transport. With the development of the economy and other modes of transport, residents will be more inclined to travel by private car when choosing road travel methods, so the amount of road passenger traffic is lower than the actual amount of travel. This, coupled with the gradual shift of some long-distance freight towards lower-cost and safer rail and waterway transport, has led to a significant decline in the road compared to other transport indices. This indicates that public demand for operational road transport (especially passenger transport) has tended to decrease in recent years as the economy has developed. The specific changes are shown in the graph.As shown in Figures2(a)–2(d) and 3(a)–3(d), the scale of development, transport efficiency and the overall assessed value of road transport all decreased to varying degrees in 2013. In contrast, the composite infrastructure assessment value did not fluctuate, and when combined with the evaluation indicators, it can be concluded that the main reason for the decrease in China’s composite transport development index in 2013 (discussed in Section 4.1) was the decrease in road transport volume.


### 4.3. Provincial Comprehensive Transportation Level

Based on the transportation statistics of each province from the National Bureau of Statistics, China Transportation Yearbook, Provincial Statistical Yearbook, and Statistical Bulletin, this paper further evaluates the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in 31 provinces (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) of China from 2000 to 2019. The results are shown in Table4.Table 4
The level of quality development in integrated transport varies by province.
Province2000200220042006200820102012201420152016201720182019Beijing0.2770.2790.3130.3120.3980.4190.4360.3940.3920.3880.3980.4100.429Tianjin0.2220.2340.2660.2820.3110.3450.3510.3100.3090.3190.3350.3430.355Hebei0.1380.1520.1440.1700.1780.2070.2330.2200.2180.2090.2220.2230.223Henan0.1360.1260.1320.1620.2130.2310.2520.2150.2130.2140.2270.2360.234Shandong0.1530.1580.1660.2070.2680.2950.2980.2310.2300.2340.2450.2540.255Shanxi0.1310.1340.1480.1770.1870.1870.2050.2060.2040.2030.2150.2260.227Liaoning0.2010.1960.2130.2210.2590.2820.2890.2870.2820.2730.2800.2780.274Jilin0.1050.0970.1030.1160.1580.1760.1910.1660.1640.1690.1760.1780.179Heilongjiang0.1130.1100.1190.1420.1460.1470.1550.1480.1460.1470.1470.1460.147Jiangsu0.1720.1690.1590.2130.2210.2400.2550.2460.2450.2460.2570.2590.270Shanghai0.2970.3150.3540.3860.3950.4240.4230.4390.4500.4600.4860.5060.515Zhejiang0.1970.1870.2080.2540.2880.2920.3050.2750.2780.2900.3020.3100.322Fujian0.1660.1430.1560.1660.1820.1960.2200.2280.2280.2380.2470.2510.249Anhui0.1320.1380.1440.1640.2620.2810.3130.3090.3070.2670.2680.2710.269Jiangxi0.1300.1330.1460.1610.2420.2400.2470.2280.2260.2270.2340.2380.237Hubei0.1400.1340.1440.1640.1970.2070.2350.2360.2440.2500.2650.2750.273Hunan0.1430.1510.1700.1980.2220.2440.2620.2500.2480.2440.2590.2580.251Guangdong0.1880.1730.1900.2050.2470.2770.3130.2680.2660.2690.2820.2940.292Guangxi0.1180.1190.1220.1390.1710.1870.2130.1750.1730.1780.1920.2110.210Hainan0.1510.1660.1810.2330.2590.2890.3080.2610.2640.2850.2960.3020.300Ningxia0.0870.0880.0900.1060.1780.1960.2090.1800.1860.1900.1880.1830.178Gansu0.0850.0840.0900.1120.1630.1720.2060.1760.1710.1750.1820.1920.190Shaanxi0.1130.1130.1260.1450.2080.2190.2480.2380.2370.2370.2470.2570.256Sichuan0.1150.1200.1300.1490.1760.1780.1990.1640.1650.1650.1640.1670.165Chongqing0.1410.1330.1270.1650.2290.2520.2780.2430.2480.2540.2670.2790.281Guizhou0.0980.0990.1090.1440.1620.1880.2130.2220.2210.2260.2460.2580.256Yunnan0.0940.0990.1120.1260.1320.1370.1490.1570.1630.1660.1710.1780.176Inner Mongolia0.0900.0880.0910.1170.1500.1860.2170.1900.1900.2000.2140.2270.225Xinjiang0.0910.0870.0890.1040.1280.1210.1350.1350.1290.1320.1350.1410.139Qinghai0.0530.0490.0590.0710.1170.1300.1450.1240.1330.1380.1470.1520.151Tibet0.0590.0580.0530.0520.0770.0850.0670.0740.0740.0760.0810.0900.092Note. Due to space limitations, the ratings of only even-numbered years are shown prior to 2014.The evaluation results indicate that the comprehensive transportation development level of each province is quite different. The comprehensive evaluation index is lower than the national level in more than 1/3 of the provinces. The comprehensive evaluation index of most eastern provinces is higher than the national level. The provinces with a comprehensive evaluation value higher than the national level in the central region increased each year. The comprehensive evaluation index of the vast majority of western provinces is lower than the national level but has maintained a growth trend. From 2000 to 2005, the growth rate of the high-quality development level of integrated transportation was highest in the eastern provinces, followed by the central and western provinces. However, after 2006, growth was more rapid in most western provinces than in the eastern and central provinces, and the growth rate in the eastern provinces slowed. On the whole, the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation has the problem of “unbalanced regional development”. Comprehensive transportation development in the eastern provinces is at a high level, but the growth rate has slowed. Comprehensive transportation development level in the central and western provinces is lower than that in the eastern provinces, but the growth rate increased each year.To explore the regional differences among the 31 provinces, fuzzy cluster analysis was conducted on the index results of the level of quality development of integrated transport in each province in 2019. According to the relative size of the index results, the 31 provinces were divided into six categories, from highest to lowest: I, II, III, IV, V, and VI. The six types were also divided into eastern, central, and western regions according to the geographical distribution characteristics of each province, as shown in Table5.Table 5
The distribution of the high-quality development level of integrated transport in each province.
Types/RegionEastern regionCentral regionWestern regionIBeijing, Shanghai——IITianjin, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Hainan—IIIShandong, Jiangsu, Fujian, and LiaoningHubei, Hunan, and AnhuiShaanxi, Chongqing, and GuizhouIVHebeiShanxi, Jiangxi, and HenanGuangxi, Inner MongoliaV—Jilin, HeilongjiangNingxia, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, and QinghaiVI——TibetThe evaluation results showed great differences in the evaluation value of the comprehensive transportation development quality of each province. The development quality values of the eastern provinces are concentrated in the types I, II, and III ranges; the values of the central provinces are concentrated in the types III, IV, and V ranges; and the values of the western provinces are concentrated in the types III, IV, V, and VI ranges. As of 2019, eight of the top 10 provinces in terms of high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation are located in the eastern region. Shanghai and Beijing have higher values for the quality of integrated transport development due to their smaller administrative areas and correspondingly higher economic levels and population densities. Tibet and other parts of the western region are affected by geographical conditions, population size, and other factors; thus, the development quality evaluation value is lower. The evaluation values of the infrastructure dimension for Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin are far ahead of the other provinces, and the evaluation values of eastern coastal provinces, such as Jiangsu and Shandong, follow closely. The construction of transportation infrastructure in western provinces, such as Qinghai and Tibet, needs to be improved. The gap in infrastructure construction among provinces is large, resulting in a low level of national infrastructure. The provincial distribution of the evaluation results in the volume scale dimension is basically similar to that in the infrastructure dimension, but the growth rate is faster; in the evaluation results of the transport efficiency dimension, the transport efficiency of more than half of the provinces in the eastern, central, and western regions shows a downward trend in recent years. The distribution of the evaluation value of the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation indicates that the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in each province is increasing annually, as shown in Figures4(a)–4(f).Figure 4
Distribution of the evaluation index of the level of high-quality development of comprehensive transportation by province in different years. (a) 2000. (b) 2005. (c) 2010. (d) 2015. (e) 2017. (f) 2019.
(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f)


## 4.1. National Comprehensive Transportation Level

Based on data from the China Statistical Yearbook, the high-quality development of China’s comprehensive transportation and the development level of its infrastructure, scale, and transportation efficiency are evaluated, as shown in Figure1.Figure 1
Chinese comprehensive transport level, 2000–2019.The evaluation results indicated that from 2000 to 2019, the evaluation index of the high-quality development of China’s comprehensive transportation and the two-dimensional development level of infrastructure and development scale showed a gradual upward trend. The development level of infrastructure gradually slowed, the development level of the development scale dimension rapidly increased, and the development level of the transportation efficiency dimension first increased and then decreased. Among them, the infrastructure dimension rating value still maintained its growth trend, indicating that China’s transport infrastructure development was still steadily progressing. The overall value of integrated transport and the scale of development and transport efficiency dimensions decreased in 2013. The data collection on the indicators led to the conclusion that there were two possible reasons for the decrease in the overall assessed value. One possible reason for this was a reduction in the transport volume indicator data due to lower market demand, which in turn led to a lower overall assessed value. Another possible reason was the lower value of the indicator in the revised road and waterway traffic statistics in the 2013 China Transport Sector Economic Statistics Special Survey, which in turn led to a lower overall assessed value. The evaluation index of the high-quality development level of integrated transportation increased from 0.141 in 2000 to 0.224 in 2019, indicating that the integrated transportation industry developed rapidly from 2000 to 2019, especially from 2004 to 2012.In order to test the accuracy of the dynamic evaluation index system, Spearman’s correlation analysis was conducted between the evaluation value results and Chinese Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the correlation between them was obtained as shown in Table2. The Spearman correlation coefficient between the national comprehensive transportation development evaluation value and GDP is 0.830, and the p-value is less than 1%, indicating that the relationship between the two is significantly one of strong correlation.Table 2
National integrated transport development assessment value and GDP correlation coefficient.
Correlation coefficientsIntegrated transport development assessment valueChinese gross domestic productIntegrated transport development assessment value1.000 (0.000∗∗∗)0.830 (0.000∗∗∗)Chinese gross domestic product0.830 (0.000∗∗∗)1.000 (0.000∗∗∗)Note.∗∗∗, ∗∗, and ∗ represent significance levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively.The change trend of the evaluation value in the graph indicates that the values of the three dimensions of infrastructure, development scale, and transportation efficiency all increased, but the change range differed among the three dimensions. The growth rate of the value of the development scale dimension was relatively large, the growth trend of the value of the development level of the infrastructure dimension tended to be stable, and the value of the transportation efficiency dimension generally showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. Since most of the evaluation systems used relative indicators, the obtained national comprehensive transportation development evaluation value can be considered the national average. The results showed that the scale of national comprehensive transportation was expanding daily and infrastructure construction was gradually improving. However, the difference between the eastern and western regions may have been too large. Transportation efficiency has decreased in recent years, and there is still much room for improvement.


## 4.2. Comprehensive Transportation Level for the Three Regions

According to the geographical division of the eastern, central, and western regions, the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in the three regions is evaluated and analyzed. The results are shown in Table3.Table 3
Evaluation results of the comprehensive transportation development level in three regions of China.
Region/YearsEasternCentralWestern20000.1850.1400.10820020.1810.1440.10520040.1900.1570.10520060.2230.1860.12620080.2560.2310.15920100.2820.2450.17120120.2960.2670.19320140.2680.2550.17020150.2660.2530.16920160.2660.2470.17420170.2770.2570.18120180.2830.2620.18920190.2850.2600.187Note. Due to space limitations, the ratings of only even-numbered years are shown prior to 2014.Table3 shows obvious differences in the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in the eastern, central, and western regions. The development trend of comprehensive transportation in the three regions and the country as a whole is basically the same, but the level of development is quite different: the quality of comprehensive transportation development in the eastern region is significantly higher than the national level, and the level of comprehensive transportation development in the central region is basically the same as the national level from 2000 to 2006 and slightly higher than the national level from 2007 to 2019. There is still a large gap between the level of comprehensive transportation development in the western region and the country as a whole, as shown in Figure 2(a). The evaluation value of the infrastructure dimension of comprehensive transportation in the eastern, central, and western regions increased steadily. Since 2005, the gap between the infrastructure development levels in the eastern and central regions has gradually decreased, with both being higher than the national average, while the infrastructure development level in the western region is still at a lower level compared to the eastern and central regions, as shown in Figure 2(b). The dimension of the development scale fell slightly in 2013 due to the change in statistical caliber, but the growth trend remained unchanged. The trend of these two dimensions in the three regions was basically the same as the trend at the national level, as shown in Figure 2(c). The evaluation value of the transportation efficiency dimension for the whole country, the eastern region, the western region, and the central region showed a fluctuating growth trend from 2000 to 2012 but a fluctuating downward trend from 2012 to 2019, as shown in Figure 2(d).Figure 2
Changes in the comprehensive evaluation value of the three dimensions for the whole country and the eastern, central, and western regions. (a) A comprehensive transportation index. (b) Transportation infrastructure. (c) Scale of transportation. (d) Transportation efficiency.
(a)(b)(c)(d)The development trend of the four modes of transportation (highway, railway, waterway, and civil aviation) in the whole country and the three major regions is basically the same, showing an increasing trend, as shown in Figures3(a)–3(d). The quality of transport development of all four modes of transport is at a high level in the eastern region, while the level of development of road and rail transport is higher in the central region than in the eastern and western regions, and the level of development of all four modes of transport is at a low level in the western region.Figure 3
Evaluative value changes in the four modes of transport in the nation as a whole and in the eastern, central, and western regions. (a) Mainland China. (b) Eastern China. (c) Central China. (d) Western China.
(a)(b)(c)(d)As shown in Figures3(a)–3(d), the overall fluctuations of the rail, waterway, and civil aviation indices are relatively stable, with only road transport showing a significantly higher index from 2008 to 2012 than in other years and a decreasing trend after 2013. The road transport index was significantly higher in 2008–2012 than in other years as a result of statistical calibrations. The passenger data for road transport during this period includes some buses and taxis but excludes this component for the remaining years. The data on road freight includes the volume of agricultural vehicles on the road, while the remaining years include only goods vehicles. This resulted in both the scale of transportation and the transport efficiency of road transport being higher in 2008–2012 than in other years. Although the index is high for 2008–2012, using 2008 and 2012 as breakpoints in time, an increasing trend in the road transport index is found for both in 2000–2012. The decreasing trend in the road transport index after 2013 is due to the specificity of road transport compared to other modes of transport. Road transport comprises both operational and non-operational components, and the statistics do not include data on nonoperational passenger and freight transport. With the development of the economy and other modes of transport, residents will be more inclined to travel by private car when choosing road travel methods, so the amount of road passenger traffic is lower than the actual amount of travel. This, coupled with the gradual shift of some long-distance freight towards lower-cost and safer rail and waterway transport, has led to a significant decline in the road compared to other transport indices. This indicates that public demand for operational road transport (especially passenger transport) has tended to decrease in recent years as the economy has developed. The specific changes are shown in the graph.As shown in Figures2(a)–2(d) and 3(a)–3(d), the scale of development, transport efficiency and the overall assessed value of road transport all decreased to varying degrees in 2013. In contrast, the composite infrastructure assessment value did not fluctuate, and when combined with the evaluation indicators, it can be concluded that the main reason for the decrease in China’s composite transport development index in 2013 (discussed in Section 4.1) was the decrease in road transport volume.


## 4.3. Provincial Comprehensive Transportation Level

Based on the transportation statistics of each province from the National Bureau of Statistics, China Transportation Yearbook, Provincial Statistical Yearbook, and Statistical Bulletin, this paper further evaluates the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in 31 provinces (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) of China from 2000 to 2019. The results are shown in Table4.Table 4
The level of quality development in integrated transport varies by province.
Province2000200220042006200820102012201420152016201720182019Beijing0.2770.2790.3130.3120.3980.4190.4360.3940.3920.3880.3980.4100.429Tianjin0.2220.2340.2660.2820.3110.3450.3510.3100.3090.3190.3350.3430.355Hebei0.1380.1520.1440.1700.1780.2070.2330.2200.2180.2090.2220.2230.223Henan0.1360.1260.1320.1620.2130.2310.2520.2150.2130.2140.2270.2360.234Shandong0.1530.1580.1660.2070.2680.2950.2980.2310.2300.2340.2450.2540.255Shanxi0.1310.1340.1480.1770.1870.1870.2050.2060.2040.2030.2150.2260.227Liaoning0.2010.1960.2130.2210.2590.2820.2890.2870.2820.2730.2800.2780.274Jilin0.1050.0970.1030.1160.1580.1760.1910.1660.1640.1690.1760.1780.179Heilongjiang0.1130.1100.1190.1420.1460.1470.1550.1480.1460.1470.1470.1460.147Jiangsu0.1720.1690.1590.2130.2210.2400.2550.2460.2450.2460.2570.2590.270Shanghai0.2970.3150.3540.3860.3950.4240.4230.4390.4500.4600.4860.5060.515Zhejiang0.1970.1870.2080.2540.2880.2920.3050.2750.2780.2900.3020.3100.322Fujian0.1660.1430.1560.1660.1820.1960.2200.2280.2280.2380.2470.2510.249Anhui0.1320.1380.1440.1640.2620.2810.3130.3090.3070.2670.2680.2710.269Jiangxi0.1300.1330.1460.1610.2420.2400.2470.2280.2260.2270.2340.2380.237Hubei0.1400.1340.1440.1640.1970.2070.2350.2360.2440.2500.2650.2750.273Hunan0.1430.1510.1700.1980.2220.2440.2620.2500.2480.2440.2590.2580.251Guangdong0.1880.1730.1900.2050.2470.2770.3130.2680.2660.2690.2820.2940.292Guangxi0.1180.1190.1220.1390.1710.1870.2130.1750.1730.1780.1920.2110.210Hainan0.1510.1660.1810.2330.2590.2890.3080.2610.2640.2850.2960.3020.300Ningxia0.0870.0880.0900.1060.1780.1960.2090.1800.1860.1900.1880.1830.178Gansu0.0850.0840.0900.1120.1630.1720.2060.1760.1710.1750.1820.1920.190Shaanxi0.1130.1130.1260.1450.2080.2190.2480.2380.2370.2370.2470.2570.256Sichuan0.1150.1200.1300.1490.1760.1780.1990.1640.1650.1650.1640.1670.165Chongqing0.1410.1330.1270.1650.2290.2520.2780.2430.2480.2540.2670.2790.281Guizhou0.0980.0990.1090.1440.1620.1880.2130.2220.2210.2260.2460.2580.256Yunnan0.0940.0990.1120.1260.1320.1370.1490.1570.1630.1660.1710.1780.176Inner Mongolia0.0900.0880.0910.1170.1500.1860.2170.1900.1900.2000.2140.2270.225Xinjiang0.0910.0870.0890.1040.1280.1210.1350.1350.1290.1320.1350.1410.139Qinghai0.0530.0490.0590.0710.1170.1300.1450.1240.1330.1380.1470.1520.151Tibet0.0590.0580.0530.0520.0770.0850.0670.0740.0740.0760.0810.0900.092Note. Due to space limitations, the ratings of only even-numbered years are shown prior to 2014.The evaluation results indicate that the comprehensive transportation development level of each province is quite different. The comprehensive evaluation index is lower than the national level in more than 1/3 of the provinces. The comprehensive evaluation index of most eastern provinces is higher than the national level. The provinces with a comprehensive evaluation value higher than the national level in the central region increased each year. The comprehensive evaluation index of the vast majority of western provinces is lower than the national level but has maintained a growth trend. From 2000 to 2005, the growth rate of the high-quality development level of integrated transportation was highest in the eastern provinces, followed by the central and western provinces. However, after 2006, growth was more rapid in most western provinces than in the eastern and central provinces, and the growth rate in the eastern provinces slowed. On the whole, the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation has the problem of “unbalanced regional development”. Comprehensive transportation development in the eastern provinces is at a high level, but the growth rate has slowed. Comprehensive transportation development level in the central and western provinces is lower than that in the eastern provinces, but the growth rate increased each year.To explore the regional differences among the 31 provinces, fuzzy cluster analysis was conducted on the index results of the level of quality development of integrated transport in each province in 2019. According to the relative size of the index results, the 31 provinces were divided into six categories, from highest to lowest: I, II, III, IV, V, and VI. The six types were also divided into eastern, central, and western regions according to the geographical distribution characteristics of each province, as shown in Table5.Table 5
The distribution of the high-quality development level of integrated transport in each province.
Types/RegionEastern regionCentral regionWestern regionIBeijing, Shanghai——IITianjin, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Hainan—IIIShandong, Jiangsu, Fujian, and LiaoningHubei, Hunan, and AnhuiShaanxi, Chongqing, and GuizhouIVHebeiShanxi, Jiangxi, and HenanGuangxi, Inner MongoliaV—Jilin, HeilongjiangNingxia, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, and QinghaiVI——TibetThe evaluation results showed great differences in the evaluation value of the comprehensive transportation development quality of each province. The development quality values of the eastern provinces are concentrated in the types I, II, and III ranges; the values of the central provinces are concentrated in the types III, IV, and V ranges; and the values of the western provinces are concentrated in the types III, IV, V, and VI ranges. As of 2019, eight of the top 10 provinces in terms of high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation are located in the eastern region. Shanghai and Beijing have higher values for the quality of integrated transport development due to their smaller administrative areas and correspondingly higher economic levels and population densities. Tibet and other parts of the western region are affected by geographical conditions, population size, and other factors; thus, the development quality evaluation value is lower. The evaluation values of the infrastructure dimension for Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin are far ahead of the other provinces, and the evaluation values of eastern coastal provinces, such as Jiangsu and Shandong, follow closely. The construction of transportation infrastructure in western provinces, such as Qinghai and Tibet, needs to be improved. The gap in infrastructure construction among provinces is large, resulting in a low level of national infrastructure. The provincial distribution of the evaluation results in the volume scale dimension is basically similar to that in the infrastructure dimension, but the growth rate is faster; in the evaluation results of the transport efficiency dimension, the transport efficiency of more than half of the provinces in the eastern, central, and western regions shows a downward trend in recent years. The distribution of the evaluation value of the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation indicates that the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in each province is increasing annually, as shown in Figures4(a)–4(f).Figure 4
Distribution of the evaluation index of the level of high-quality development of comprehensive transportation by province in different years. (a) 2000. (b) 2005. (c) 2010. (d) 2015. (e) 2017. (f) 2019.
(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f)


## 5. Conclusion and Future Research

This study discusses a dynamic integrated evaluation model and new efficiency evaluation indices to evaluate the quality of regional integrated transport development. The first part of this paper analyses the existing research content, discusses the problems existing in the current transportation evaluation, and proposes an evaluation index set containing new indicators and the measurement model from the essence of the integrated transportation system. This system takes the micro-level transportation efficiency index as the core, and combines the transportation infrastructure, the transportation volume scale, and the regional geographical population factors to form a set of reasonable evaluation index sets. This system uses the entropy method combined with a two-way incentive comprehensive evaluation method. Using China as an example, a comprehensive evaluation index of the quality development of integrated transport is measured, and the spatiotemporal evolution of integrated transport development in 31 provinces of China is studied and analyzed. The main purpose of this study is to put forward a dynamic comprehensive evaluation method based on the micro level for the measurement of regional integrated transport development quality.The evaluation results indicate that China’s comprehensive transportation system is in a steady development stage, and the scale of development scale is increasing annually. However, there are still obvious regional differences in the construction of transportation infrastructure. Transportation efficiency, especially the utilization efficiency of transportation infrastructure, fluctuates greatly. In recent years, there has been a downward trend in efficiency, and there is still room for improvement. There is a clear imbalance in development between regions and provinces. The high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in the eastern, central, and western regions shows a clear ladder-like distribution. The eastern, central, and western regions are decreasing in a gradual, stepwise manner, with the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation in the eastern region being in a leading position. The development of comprehensive transportation in the central region is similar to the overall level in the country, and in the western region, it is relatively backwards. Based on the above conclusions, we can obtain the following insights: in the three evaluation dimensions of integrated transport, the average growth of China’s transport infrastructure construction tends to be stable, but interregional development is not balanced, and the western region in particular needs to strengthen transport infrastructure construction. The scale of development has increased annually, and transportation efficiency has shown a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. It is necessary to pay attention to improvements in transportation infrastructure coverage and, at the same time, to steadily promote infrastructure construction according to the growth of transportation demand. Ensuring the stable improvement of the transportation efficiency of various modes of transportation is an important way to achieve steady improvement in the quality of comprehensive transportation development.The perspective of transportation efficiency at the microscale, along with the evaluation value set constructed by the relative development of infrastructure and transportation scale, The entropy method and two-way incentive model are used to dynamically evaluate the high-quality development level of China 's comprehensive transportation. The evaluation system constructed by the research is simple, with the measurement results being more accurate, and it has good universality. It can be used to evaluate the quality of regional comprehensive transportation development so as to guide the future development of the transportation industry.There are still many shortcomings in the evaluation and measurement model of the high-quality development level of comprehensive transportation constructed in this paper. In terms of the underlying indicators, the water transport infrastructure cannot be combined with regional geographical area factors. The content of the highway traffic index data includes operational index data with a change in statistical calibration but does not include data on private transportation. Additionally, because the safety production dimension indicators are relatively subjective, such as potential safety risks and accident response capabilities, and because it is difficult to obtain data for the low-carbon green dimension indicators for the earlier period, the safety production and low-carbon green dimensions are not included. The dimension of transportation efficiency is characterized only by the utilization of transportation infrastructure, and the connotations need to be enriched.



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*Source: 3238777-2023-03-23.xml*