Abstract
With the planning and progress of the construction of the trans-Eurasian high-speed rail (HSR) network, it becomes an important issue for Chinese contractors to enter the European HSR market. Facing the world’s most competitive contractors and their high technology levels, Chinese contractors will need to know their advantages and disadvantages, so as to make necessary improvements. In this study, contractors for HSR are divided into two groups: construction contractors and rail equipment suppliers. In order to evaluate the competitiveness of HSR contractors, a Grey-BPNN model that combines the grey relational analysis and backpropagation neural network (BPNN) is proposed. The Grey-BPNN model is expected to analyze the overall competitiveness of Chinese contractors in the European HSR market and provide informative decision support for them. The study results show the following: (1) in the field of HSR construction, the competitiveness gap between the top-tier Chinese contractors and the most competitive international contractors is small. Chinese contractors’ competitive advantages lie in medium- and low-technology-level projects, with a strong development potential. However, they highly depend on Chinese domestic market and lack in intangible resources, like management ability and market development ability; (2) for rail equipment suppliers, China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) ranks among the top-tier leaders of the international market. CRRC’s greatest competitor in the European HSR market is Siemens, and CRRC is much more competitive than others in the sustainable development capability. However, CRRC needs to increase the quantity of patents and Research and Development (R&D) expenditures in transportation. As a weak transportation patent holder, CRRC has a potential risk of getting intellectual property litigations in the European HSR market.
Highlights
In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the “Belt and Road Initiative” to promote infrastructure construction and connectivity among countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa to form regional cooperation platforms. e operating mileage of China’s high-speed rail (HSR) has reached 14,620 kilometers, which is the longest operating mileage of HSR and the largest scale of construction in the world [1]
Since there are many overlaps among competence theory, resource theory, and market structure theory and the HSR market is not a fully open and competitive market, this paper evaluates the competitiveness of HSR contractor from the aspects of enterprise capability and enterprise resource
The evaluation index system is constructed by analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and literature review, and the data of Engineering News-Record (ENR) 2015-2016 is selected to train the backpropagation neural network (BPNN)
Summary
In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the “Belt and Road Initiative” to promote infrastructure construction and connectivity among countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa to form regional cooperation platforms. e operating mileage of China’s high-speed rail (HSR) has reached 14,620 kilometers, which is the longest operating mileage of HSR and the largest scale of construction in the world [1]. China’s HSR has become “national business card”. It is one of the most successful strategic industries established by the use of institutional and innovative advantages since China’s reform and opening up. In August 2017, the Russian Railway Company proposed a Eurasian high-speed trunk project, a total cost of nearly $130 billion, and the project was expected to start in 2018 and complete in 2026. In addition to the huge engineering demand on the Eurasian HSR, European countries have plans and willingness to build HSR. The United Kingdom is expected to invest in the HS2 project of 51 billion, and the eight European countries are planning to invest 200 billion in the construction of 9000 km of high
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