Long-Term Effects of Highway Network Improvement Focusing on Quality of Life

This study examined the impact of highway networks on people's quality of life (QOL), computed the changes in QOL values provided by the urban environment to people using long-term data from 1963 to 2019 for the central region of Japan, and examined the distribution of people with and without road networks. This analysis showed that during Japan's 50 years of rapid economic growth, the level of living standard increased as much as the income did and that the improvements in highways and road networks contributed significantly to the enhancement in QOL. Particularly, the changes were noticeable in rural areas, indicating that the development of road networks may have significantly influenced the disparity in living standards between urban and rural areas.