A research team led by Professor Sunbin Yoo from the Department of Energy Science of Sungkyunkwan University(SKKU)—in international collaboration with Fukuoka University, Beijing Normal University, Korea University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College—has empirically demonstrated for the first time globally the crucial role that restoring transportation networks (such as roads and railways) plays in rebuilding regional economies and helping residents recover their livelihoods following a major disaster. The study was recently published in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, a world-renowned journal in the field of transportation and logistics.

When major disasters such as earthquakes or floods strike, roads and railways are damaged, cutting off human mobility and disrupting the transport of goods, which triggers severe secondary economic losses. In analyzing the disaster recovery process, the research team focused on how rapidly "Market Access"—the size of the population and market accessible relative to travel time—is restored beyond simple physical facility repairs as the main key to economic reconstruction.

Using big data spanning from 2006 to 2020 across more than 1,700 municipalities in Japan, the research team conducted a comparative analysis of how the restoration of high-speed rail (Shinkansen) and expressway networks affected regional gross domestic product (GDP), population movement, and new business creation. The analysis revealed that expressway restoration exerted a much broader and stronger positive impact on reviving manufacturing, encouraging population inflow, and fostering new business formation compared to high-speed rail.

This difference stems from the fact that while high-speed rail primarily supports services and business travel around major hub cities (such as Sendai), expressways provide "door-to-door" connectivity that reaches deep into local communities for transporting manufactured goods, hauling materials, and commuting, thereby swiftly reviving the local manufacturing ecosystem. Counterfactual simulation results estimated that if expressways had not been restored following the earthquake, additional economic losses of approximately 567.3 billion yen (over 5 trillion KRW) per year would have been incurred as of 2020.

Professor Sunbin Yoo, who led the study, stated, "This study holds significant value in scientifically proving that after a major disaster, rapid reconstruction of the expressway network—which connects local production sites and logistics—is just as essential as restoring hub-centered high-speed rail to revive local communities. It will serve as an important guideline for enhancing economic resilience in future disaster response policies and national infrastructure planning."