The economy in Korea has rapidly grown since the construction of Kyung-in highway in 1968 and that of Kyung-bu highway in 1970. Korean government has done its best in building the most efficient highway network to cope with the rapidly growing traffic...
The economy in Korea has rapidly grown since the construction of Kyung-in highway in 1968 and that of Kyung-bu highway in 1970. Korean government has done its best in building the most efficient highway network to cope with the rapidly growing traffic demand and the balance of regional development. The total length of 20 freeway routes is over 1,996.3km as the end of 1998. This study examined closely how the constructed highways have affected national economy, regional industry, national land space and style of living. Then, it is a main purpose to establish a standard of the most efficient alternatives in order to provide basic data when a new highway is built. This study is related to an indirect effect of highways, that is, a social economic effect. It is intended to secure an objective feasibility of the effect of highway construction through the establishment of analysis theory for highway effects, case study, selection of evaluation items and the effect measurement of each evaluation item. The various analysis tools were adopted for the measurement of highway effects. They were Macro-Economic Model, Production Function Model, Econometric studies and Quasi-experimental analysis. In conclusion, highway promotes accessibility and mobility through reduction of both time and space. Therefore, it is found that highway contributes to the improvement of national economy, promotion of regional development, change of national land space, improvement of living environment, quality of living and so on.