Bhaptiyahi in context: Street-network sprawl trends

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Bhaptiyahi plotted against Bihar and India. The SNDi of new construction in Bhaptiyahi was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Bihar which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Bhaptiyahi's incremental SNDi rose from 1.9 to 4.54 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Bhaptiyahi ranked 20th out of 264 cities in Bihar and 395th out of 1868 in India as of 2020.

Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.

What about similarly populated cities?

• Sujangarh, India
• Basmat, India
• Fenyang, China
• Durba, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Mehar Taluka, Pakistan
• Seka, Ethiopia

In new street additions, Bhaptiyahi and Durba both built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Sujangarh built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Bhaptiyahi became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards, while Sujangarh grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Durba became progressively more connected. Notably, Bhaptiyahi had a more sprawly network than Durba in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.