Recently, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Transport issued the "Jiangsu Province '14th Five-Year' Highway Development Plan," which proposes to "build composite highway corridors combining expressways with ordinary national and provincial roads under a 'general-high combination' approach, forming a new pattern of highway transport corridors with the 'four vertical, four horizontal' as the main framework." Among these, Lianyungang ranks first on the "Vertical One" Coastal Corridor, the "Vertical Three" Lianyungang-Nanjing-Huangshan Corridor, and the "Horizontal One" East Longhai Corridor, placing it in a pivotal position among the province's highway transport corridors.

Highways are the most basic, extensive, flexible, and indispensable mode of transport in the comprehensive transport system, providing the most direct, important, and convenient services for economic development, social progress, and public travel. Focusing on serving the Belt and Road Initiative, the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and the Yangtze River Delta regional integration strategy, and based on the National Comprehensive Multi-dimensional Transport Network Planning Outline issued by the State Council and the National Highway Network Plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, during the "14th Five-Year" period Jiangsu will complete a new round of revision of the provincial highway network plan and advance the construction of projects under the Jiangsu expressway network plan.

In terms of optimizing a smooth and well-connected highway collection and distribution system, Lianyungang will advance the construction of collection and distribution expressways for the airport hub and the rapid upgrading of ordinary trunk highways, serve Huaguoshan International Airport, and build the Lianyungang section of National Highway 233. To serve the modern logistics "Golden Triangle" of Lianyungang, Xuzhou, Huai'an, and Suqian in northern Jiangsu, it will build the Lianyungang-Huai'an section of the Changchun-Shenzhen Expressway, the Lianyungang-Suqian Expressway, and the northern Guanyun section of National Highway 228. It will accelerate the construction of highway corridors to coastal ports, improve the collection and distribution system of Lianyungang Port, and build the eastern Lianyungang section of National Highway 311.

According to the plan requirements, by 2025 Lianyungang will initially form a modern highway system characterized by digital highways, safe highways, green highways, beautiful highways, and law-based highways. It will use brand creation to lead high-quality highway development and achieve four major development goals: accessible road networks, modern maintenance, efficient governance, and high-quality services. The proportion of highways at Grade II and above will reach 29.5%; the coverage rate of Grade I and above highways in townships will reach 96%; county seats will reach high-speed rail stations within 30 minutes, and 95% of townships (subdistricts, parks) will have access to expressways within 30 minutes; the coverage rate of graded highways for planned development villages and important rural economic nodes will basically reach 100%; and the average travel time from townships to ordinary national and provincial roads, from administrative villages to county roads, and from natural villages to graded highways will reach 15 minutes, 10 minutes, and 5 minutes, respectively.

It is worth noting that during the "14th Five-Year" period, Lianyungang will further promote the improvement of highway service functions and perfect a high-quality, people-benefiting highway service system. In 2022, the three-level "road chief system" for county, township, and village rural roads will be fully implemented. It will actively advance integrated comprehensive law enforcement and establish cross-regional and cross-departmental joint law enforcement mechanisms for highway transport, carrying out joint enforcement actions on a regular basis. It will implement smart highway demonstration projects. In addition, in conjunction with beautiful countryside construction and rural living environment improvement, it will integrate natural ecology, local customs, and traditional culture into the planning, design, and construction of rural roads, so that highways are fully integrated with the surrounding rural landscapes, pastoral scenery, and agricultural parks along the routes. By 2025, every township will have beautiful rural roads. It will accelerate the improvement of the three-level rural logistics system of counties, townships, and villages, promote the integration of transport, postal, supply and marketing, and e-commerce resources, and form an integrated urban-rural logistics service featuring "shared stations, networked services, centralized freight, and interconnected information."