Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Transp. in Dev. Econ. (2017) 3:14 DOI 10.1007/s40890-017-0044-y ORIGINAL ARTICLE Development of a Need-Based Approach for Rural Road Network Planning Shalini Kanuganti 1  · Bhupali Dutta 1  · Ashoke Kumar Sarkar 1  · Ajit Pratap Singh 1   Received: 8 March 2016 / Accepted: 16 June 2017 © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 Introduction Road construction has always been considered impor- tant for rural development, but the rational approach of road construction has changed over time. In the 1960s and 1970s, roads were seen as an asset in economic growth by connecting areas of potentially proftable agriculture [4, 9]. The perspective of rural transportation planning in develop- ing countries has changed from a ‘road-and-car’ approach to a ‘needs-led’ approach [11]. There is a lack of basic understanding of defning the actual role of rural roads in the overall road network hierarchy in developing countries [10]. Keeping in view the importance of transport, [4] argues that the development of primary necessary infrastructure alone does not ensure poverty alleviation in rural areas and will not totally help in achieving the Millennium Develop- ment Goals (MDG) in Africa. Connectivity in rural areas based on demand doesn’t ensure accessibility to basic facilities. Moreover, the devel- oping countries have large number of small settlements for example in India, there are about 0.6 million villages and many of them have very small population. The demand pattern in rural areas being quite low, connecting villages based on population isolates habitations with less popu- lation and in the long run they are deprived of economic and social development. Hence, demand-based approach of connecting villages may not be appropriate; rather a need-based network approach providing accessibility to all the villages to basic facilities would be more appropriate. The Rural Roads Development Plan: vision 2025 has also suggested the development of network-based approach for connecting habitations with small population [19]. Build- ing need-based network for providing accessibility to facili- ties could be efective in increasing economic potential, Abstract Road connectivity has a catalytic efect on the economic and social development and poverty alleviation in rural areas. In most of the developing countries, prior- ity of connection is entirely based on demand. But mere connectivity does not satisfy accessibility to basic needs. In this paper an attempt is being made to develop a need- based approach for rural connectivity which would ensure accessibility to the basic facilities. Using GIS platform, a network was developed using need-based approach on it. Similarly using the demand-based connectivity network was prepared. Then both the networks were compared. It was found that the need-based network was connecting more number of villages and providing better accessibility though the length was higher. The paper has suggested that it is not necessary to construct high quality roads for each link and depending on the usage and population served they could be constructed as earth, gravel or black top/concrete roads. Considering the budgetary constraints a methodol- ogy has also been suggested to prioritize the construction of the links. Keywords Rural transportation · Need-based network · Demand-based network · Accessibility * Shalini Kanuganti shalini.kanu@gmail.com Bhupali Dutta bhupali08@gmail.com Ashoke Kumar Sarkar aksarkar@bits-pilani.ac.in Ajit Pratap Singh aps@pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in 1 Civil Engineering Department, Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, Pilani 333031, India