A computational approach for categorizing street segments in urban street networks based on topological properties

Street classification is fundamental to transportation planning and design. Urban transportation planning is mostly based on function-based classification schemes (FCS), which classifies streets according to their respective requirements in the pre-defined hierarchy of the urban street network (USN). This study proposes a computational approach for a network-based categorization of street segments (NSC). The main objectives are, first, to identify and describe NSC categories, second, to examine the spatial distribution of street segments from FCS and NSC within a city, and third, to compare FCS and NSC to identify similarities and differences between the two. Centrality measures derived from network science are computed for each street segment and then clustered based on their topological importance. The adaption of clustering, which is a numerical categorization technique, potentially facilitates the integration with other analytical processes in planning and design. The quantitative description of street characteristics obtained by this method is suitable for development of new knowledge-based planning approaches. When extensive data or knowledge of the real performance of streets are not available or costly, this method provides an objective categorization from those data sets that are readily available. The method can also assign the segments that are categorized as “unclassified” in FCS to the categories in the NSC scheme. Since centrality metrics are associated with the functioning of USNs, the comparison between FCS and NSC not only contributes to the understanding and description of the fine variations in topological properties of the segments within each FCS class but also supports the identification of the mismatched segments, where reassessment and adjustment is required, for example, in terms of planning and design.