A STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE CONSTRUCTION ON REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

In recent years, it has been widely recognized that the transportation infrastructure construction is highly correlated with the economic development, especially in developing countries. The quality and quantity of transportation infrastructure systems have a direct bearing on economic growth. Bottlenecks in the provision of transportation infrastructure facilities can severely retard the growth in all economic sectors of a country or a region. Therefore, the developing countries are facing the challenges of updating and expanding their infrastructure facilities so that the economic growth will not be retarded from the lack of infrastructure construction. This research focuses on modeling the relationships among economic development in terms of the growth rate of the gross domestic product and the transportation infrastructure construction in terms of the growth rates of lengths of various transportation modes using the statistical data reported from government agencies. These relationships are helpful for making decisions on transportation infrastructure construction and investment policies both within the transportation modes at the regional level and among regions of a country for a specific transportation mode.