Research on the Correlation between Freight Transportation and National Economic Development

Abstract

Freight transportation is closely related to economic development. Freight transportation will promote economic development, and economic development will also promote the growth of freight transportation. Therefore, quantitative analysis of the relationship between the two has certain research significance. This article explores the correlation between the two stages and different modes of transportation through coupling analysis, cointegration analysis, and gray correlation analysis based on the data from 1989 to 2018 of freight transportation volume and GDP. The study found that, overall, the growth of freight volume has a certain role in promoting economic growth, and the correlation between different modes of transportation is different. Among them, the correlation between water transportation1 and GDP is the strongest, and civil aviation is the weakest. The correlation between highways and GDP is stronger than that of railways, and railway freight transportation still has certain development potential under the conditions of green transportation and the "promoting railway instead of highway transportation" environment and transportation policies. According to the analysis, it is expected that the growth of freight volume will continue to drive economic growth in the future, but different modes of transportation will lead to different functions. Therefore, while continuing to maintain the development momentum of the freight transportation industry, adjusting a more reasonable transportation structure will be more conducive to China's economic development.