Currently, there are five major contradictions in the functional development of highway service areas in China in response to the demand for smooth circulation of goods between urban and rural areas: firstly, the closure of service areas has led to a disconnect between the consumption demands of passing travelers and the supply of agricultural specialty products in townships along the highways; secondly, the transfer of passengers is limited, and the cost of supplementing passenger flow for operating companies is high, resulting in a sharp increase in the time cost of passenger distribution from departure to destination; thirdly, the inability to directly distribute small -batch logistics along highways, resulting in private companies seizing profitable routes and neglecting the distribution of small -batch goods to rural towns along the highways; fourthly, traveler demands are becoming increasingly diverse, while the variety of services offered remains extremely limited compared with those available abroad; fifthly, parking difficulties in urban areas can only be alleviated by relying on suburban and rural road networks. Constructing open service areas and focusing on balanced urban -rural deployment to form networks are important successful experiences from Japan, South Korea, France, and Germany in promoting consumption benefiting both urban and rural areas. Service areas integrating emergency rescue, passenger distribution and transfer, logistics warehousing, express distribution and exchange, local agricultural product sales, and tourism leisure and sightseeing have become the trend for future development. Building thousands of comprehensive service areas and various types of small and medium -sized network nodes along highways in China and utilizing node transfers to achieve direct nationwide transportation of passengers, goods, and mails from “town to town” can fully leverage the shared advantages of existing high -grade highway networks. This approach effectively enhances domestic bidirectional circulation, including increasing passenger flow, improving the quality and quantity of express delivery services, and accelerating the improvement of production and sales in urban and rural areas. By aggregating the daily economic and social activities of the entire nation into a large market for shared production, exchange, and consumption between urban and rural areas, it promotes the implementation of rural revitalization and facilitates the integrated development of urban and rural areas.