Linking Transportation Infrastructure Supply Capacity and Industrial Green Transformation: Evidence from China’s Yangtze River Delta

Transportation infrastructure and industrial decarbonization are mutually dependent, yet their dynamic interaction remains underexplored. This study examines the linkage between transportation infrastructure supply capacity and industrial green transformation in China’s Yangtze River Delta. Province-level data for Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui are evaluated using entropy-weighted composite indices, and a system dynamics model is used to simulate feedback relationships through 2026 under baseline, digital-empowerment, financial-support, environmental-regulation, and coordinated-policy scenarios. Both systems generally improved over the study period, although pronounced provincial heterogeneity remained. Shanghai and Jiangsu maintained higher and more stable levels of the two systems, whereas Zhejiang and Anhui improved faster in particular dimensions such as freight capacity and industrial greening. Under the baseline scenario, the linkage operates mainly through technology-related productivity gains that improve the conversion of transportation investment and labor inputs into infrastructure service capacity. Scenario comparisons indicate that digital empowerment produces the strongest near-term improvements in passenger and freight turnover and green-production efficiency, whereas the effects of financial support and environmental regulation are more indirect and lagged. None of the modeled interventions yields a large short-term reduction in pollution emissions, highlighting the need for sustained and coordinated policy mixes. Historical validation over 2010–2023 shows acceptable accuracy, with mean absolute percentage errors ranging from 4.86% to 12.34% for the eight key state variables. The findings support differentiated infrastructure investment and integrated digital–green transport governance. The aggregate provincial data and simulations characterize system-level relationships. These findings can inform differentiated transport investment, industrial restructuring, and regional coordination policies in the Yangtze River Delta and other rapidly urbanizing regions, and the modeling framework can be extended to evaluate transport–industry linkages in other settings.