Evaluating the coordinated development of economic, social and environmental benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure: Case study of four Chinese autonomous municipalities

Urban public transportation infrastructure is a basic and necessary condition which ensures urban daily operation. The economic, social and environmental benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure are the positive impacts on urban economy, society and environment generated by the use of it respectively. Promoting their coordinated development is helpful to raise the level of urban public transportation infrastructure benefit. This paper evaluates the coordinated development of these three benefits taking four Chinese autonomous municipalities as examples. These four cities have large-scale urban public transportation infrastructure but its basic function has not been fully played. Whether these three benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure have been developed in harmony or not was unclear. We analyzed the coordinated development among three benefits by constructing coupling coordination degree model and studied the impacts of three benefits on their coordinated development level using panel regression model. The result showed that the coordinated development levels of three benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure were lower in these four cities and the impact of economic benefit on their coordinated development level was largest and social benefit insignificant. It was highly related with the development strategies and construction levels of urban public transportation infrastructure in these four cities. Three policy implications were put forward to the improvement of coordinated development level of three benefits of urban public transportation infrastructure.