Analysis of the road network evolution through geographical information extracted from historical maps: A case study of Manila, Philippines

• Main Authors: Cirunay, Michelle T., Soriano, Maricor N., Batac, Rene C.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Roads—Geographic information systems—Philippines—Manila; Databases and Information Systems
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/11221
• Institution: De La Salle University

We present a comparison of the network structure of the road network of Manila, the historical capital of the Philippines, for the years 1908 and 2018. The 1908 data is extracted from a historical map that is georeferenced, redrawn for the street network, and saved as a digital Geographical Information Systems (GIS) data. On the other hand, the 2018 map is imported from OpenStreetMap (OSM). The roads are exported as connected nodes, which are then analyzed for their network properties using the tools from complex network analysis. Degree centrality measures show no discernible patterns for both the old and new maps, suggesting that the majority of the road networks have predominantly grid-like patterns. The development of the road network is more discernible from the changes in the closeness and betweenness centrality measures, which have shown a general outward movement from the geographical center of the city. Both the map digitization technique and the network centrality analyses can be extended to incorporate a wider set of cities and longer time periods, providing a straightforward quantitative description of the urban road network growth.