Railway passenger transport spatial contacts and their structure Tupu of central cities in China

Abstract

On the basis of current interactive connection of railway passenger transport between 286 central cities in China and the analysis of different passenger train types--local, rapid, express, multiple units and high-speed railway, the paper intends to comprehensively deconstruct the spatial pattern of national railway passenger transport and its structure characteristics by using GIS methods based on O-D contact network, whose goal is to reveal the national railway passenger spatial contacts, distribution regularity and regional difference more clearly and profoundly, as well as new technical ideas and more data for transportation spatial connect research by means of making use of central cities' interactive connection data of "city-train-city" and overcoming the problem that traditional railway connection only has the information between origination and destination and lacks that of the intermediate stations. The results show that the spatial framework of national railway passenger transport between central cities presents an eastward tilted"kai"font shape, which mainly consists of two vertical train lines: Beijing-Shanghai to Shanghai-Shenzhen, Beijing-Guangzhou to Beijing-Harbin, and two horizontal lines: Lanzhou-Lianyungang to Lanzhou-Urumqi and Shanghai-Kunming. The linkage of national railway passenger transport between central cities is characterized by Rank-Size distribution, which belongs to the most optimal centralized distribution in natural state. The connection of national railway passenger transport between central cities generally relies on important transport axis and neighbor core cities. This study clearly demonstrates the major contact directions and corresponding intensities between inter and outer railway transports in a given subdivision types of train number. The study shows that the rapid train dominates the current railway passenger transport in China. The rapid development of the multiple units and high-speed railway technology has greatly changed the structure of Chinese railway passenger transport. The contacts of multiple units and high-speed railways concentrate in three economic regions of eastern China. However, there is a tighter linkage between Beijing and Shanghai, as well as Beijing and Guangzhou compared with that between Shanghai and Guangzhou(Shenzhen). A relative weak contact between Shanghai and Guangzhou(Shenzhen) is attributed to the infrastructure of high-speed railway facilities lagging behind.