Research on infrastructure scale structure misallocation under economic and low-carbon perspectives: evidence from China's toll expressway industry

Improving resource allocation efficiency is an important way to promote the high-quality and low-carbon development of toll expressways. This paper constructs a resource misallocation measurement model with the demand of the economic, low-carbon and comprehensive of toll expressway construction in each region, and adopts the panel data of 26 provinces from 2013 to 2021 to measure the scale allocation gap of toll expressways under different demands, and analyzes the inter-regional and supply-demand imbalance. The results show that: the current network layout of toll expressways lacks sufficient balance, manifesting in varying degrees of mileage and capital allocation across different regions; Resource allocation of toll expressways tends to outflow from over-resourced regions with high connectivity, while simultaneously inflow to under-resourced, low connectivity areas; Regions have commenced positioning the enhancement of environmental protection capabilities of toll expressways and the expansion of their economic benefits at an equivalent strategic echelon; The national policy plays a significant role in enhancing the overall efficiency of expressway resource allocation. The conclusions of this study provide policy insights for the optimization of resource allocation in China's toll expressways, particularly in terms of driving high-quality development and narrowing the gap between supply and demand.