Brightness of nighttime lights as a proxy for freight traffic: A case study of China

Since economic reforms in 1978, China's huge growth has led to a rapid increase in demand for freight traffic. Timely assessments of past and current amounts of freight traffic are basis for predicting future demands of freight traffic and appropriately allocating transportation resources. Sum lights (summed digital number (DN) value of pixels of nighttime light imagery) for years 2000, 2004, and ...