Networking and sustainable development of urban spatial planning: Influence of rail transit

Urban rail transit supports the development of megacities, while changes in urban spatial structure affect the structure of urban rail transit networks and the carbon emissions of vehicles. The interactions between urban rail transit and urban space in megacities form a complex spatial networking system. It has become important to guide cities toward low-carbon, energy-saving, and sustainable development through rail transit planning recently. To address this need, this study engages in theoretical clarification by, first, conducting a literature metrology analysis method to explore the relationship between rail transit, urban space, and sustainability. The analysis revealed that improving rail transit network efficiency for urban sustainable development. Next, this study summarized (1) the laws of the role of rail transit on urban spatial structure. (2) Pointed out there is a relative lack of research on the internal network structure of megacities. Lastly, the study summarized the influencing factors and optimization measures of network efficiency from existing literature and it is pointed out that (1) the optimization of network efficiency lacks consideration of sustainable urban concepts, and there are few studies on rail transit network efficiency. (2) The collaborative development of urban spatial networks driven by Big Data is a future research trend.