Analysis of the regional differences of highway steel stocks in China

The development of highway infrastructure has led to the accumulation of steel and other resources in the highway sector.In order to quantify the highway steel volume in different regions, and analyze its regional differences, according to the technical requirements, survey data and previous research results of the four types of highway facilities(bridges, tunnels, highway safety facilities, roadbed and pavements), this paper firstly sets the range of steel intensity of various facilities:highway protective fence 34.32-54.45 t/km, highway barrier 28.60-47.40 t/km; highway bridge 6.65-30.57 t/m; highway tunnel 1.43-3.06 t/m; roadbed and pavement 1.05-2.88 t/km.Base on the set steel intensity coefficient and many kinds of facilities statistics, we found that China’s highway steel stocks increased by 575 million tons from 2000 to 2015, where highway bridges are the main source to the growth.The stock of highway steel is relatively concentrated in the eastern coastal area and the southern coastal region, where Zhejiang province and Guangdong province have highway steel stocks greater than 40 million tons and Guizhou province and Yunnan province have higher growth rates.Finally, we indicate that the differential growth of highway steel stocks and highway construction length has led to an increase in the number of provinces with unbalanced development of highway infrastructure stocks.The differences are dominated by differences within the region but the differences between regions show decreasing contribution.The eastern coastal and southwestern regions have the most significant differences where the steel stocks formed by the highway construction in Zhejiang province and Guizhou province are higher than other provinces, resulting in the gradual expansion of the regional differences.