Bilevel Programming Model Applied to Maximizing the Accessibility of China’s Pearl River Delta Economic Circle

摘要

In response to the new tendency in regional integration and economic globalization, China’sgovernments and entrepreneurs concentrate on building a highly accessible transportationnetwork in economic circles. The main aim of this paper is to maximize the accessibility ofChina’s Pearl River Delta Economic Circle (PRDEC) under limited investment constraint. Toachieve this object, a bilevel programming model is presented. The upper-level model is tomaximize the accessibility of the PRDEC under the investment constraint and the lower-levelmodel is the combined modal split and assignment model which can capture passenger’stravel model choice behavior. In order to resolve this bilevel programming model, a localsearch genetic algorithm is designed and its detailed steps are introduced. The proposedmodel and algorithm are used to maximize the accessibility of the abstract network developedfrom the PRDEC under three different constraints of construction investments. Appliedresults of case study show that, when the upper-limit of construction investment is 50 billionyuan, the accessibility of the PRDEC can be improved by 13.2 percent by building four newintercity railways, one new highway, and expanding one existing highway. Optimizationresults were also obtained respectively when the upper-limits of construction investments are37.5 billion yuan and 25 billion yuan. Related research and analysis may help decisionmakers with the design of integrated transportation networks in regional planning.