Application of Fractal Theory to Research on the Tempo-spatial Changes of Urban Traffic Network——Taking Shanghai as a Case

A lot of case researches on the fractal features in traffic network of city by scholars at home and abroad have shown that the fractal feature and fractal dimension will become a relatively ideal and useful indicator to remark the form and property of traffic network in a city.This paper takes the traffic network in Shanghai as a case,the fractal dimension of the traffic network in Shanghai and its districts have been measured and calculated so as to research on the spatial changes of the fractal features.By using the fractal dimension of the network in the city and districts measured and estimated in different periods,the temporal evolution of the fractal features has been investigated.The results have shown that as to the spatial field,the fractal feature of the traffic network in the inner city of Shanghai is more complicated than that in the outer city,and the fractal dimension is gradually decreased from the inner to the outer along the main developing axes of the city.As to the temporal field,the fractal feature and complexity of the traffic network in the recent period is higher than that in the earlier.It is believed that the evolution of fractal dimension can be used to describe and explain the morphological processes of the city explicitly together with other useful urban indicators.