System Dynamics Approach for Evaluating the Interconnection Performance of Cross-Border Transport Infrastructure

Cross-border transport infrastructure (CTI) has been regarded as critical for boosting and supporting the coordinated development of regions. However, so far, very limited studies have examined the interconnection performance of CTI with particular emphasis on the overall dynamics of the complicated CTI system and how the dynamic interactions of management measures would affect the system performance as a whole. Therefore, this paper takes on a dynamic and holistic view to investigate how the overall interconnection performance of CTI is affected by the dynamic interactions of management measures. First, four broad indicators for measuring CTI interconnection performance, transportation time reliability, transportation easy accessibility, transportation safety, and transportation operating service quality were identified and analyzed. Second, the causal interactions among main variables were analyzed through causal-loop diagrams. Third, a system dynamics (SD) approach was employed to develop a model for quantifying the effects of variables. Finally, the model was verified and applied with data of the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge; policy analysis was conducted as well. The findings prove that the dynamic interactions among various management measures are critical in evaluating the interconnection performance of CTI. In particular, impacts of certain combination sets of policies would be larger when management measures are collectively considered. The proposed model can be used as a basis for simulating various management measures, so that the optimum policy combinations can be explored in advance to improve the interconnection performance of CTI.