Abstract
With the improvement of China’s high-speed rail network, there have been many economic and social benefits for local residents. Based on a questionnaire conducted in stations on the Beijing-Shanghai line, and through an analysis of high-speed rail passenger travel behavior and family relocation, we explored the social effects of high-speed rail. The study found that high-speed rail passengers are mainly young, highly educated, and have a middle to high income. However, with the popularization of high-speed rail, such differences in the social stratum of high-speed rail passengers are expected to disappear. Through an analysis of passenger travel status, we found that the areas surrounding high-speed rail stations are very accessible to the main cities, and are well connected by other public transport. With the emergence of the “high mobility era” based on the high-speed rail network, the separation of workplace and residence and the number of “double city” households are increasing, primarily in the Beijing-Tianjin and Shanghai-Nanjing (especially in Suzhou-Kunshan-Shanghai) regions. In addition, high-speed rail introduces the possibility of household mobility, with 22.7% of the respondents in this study having relocated since the Beijing-Shanghai line opened. Household mobility is apparent primarily among big cities, with movement toward nearby cities. We also found that occupation, income, residence time, and schooling of children have a significant impact on households. With the improvement of high-speed rail networks, household mobility will become a common phenomenon and research on domestic mobility will continue to increase.
Highlights
Over the past few years, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted the development of high-speed railways (HSRs) in China [1]
Wang et al [12] found that with the development of the HSR network in China’s Jiangsu province, accessibility levels across the province improved by 9.6% and the inequality of regional accessibility decreased by an average of 25.7%
This study has explored the social effects produced by an HSR
Summary
Over the past few years, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted the development of high-speed railways (HSRs) in China [1]. Local governments expect HSRs to change the regional economic status of cities, and the construction of the new towns linked to the HSR network will produce an enormous amount of revenue from the special land finance system (tu di cai zheng) [5]. Zhang et al [13] found that HSRs in China generated a time-space contraction effect to the region from the station to the cities along the HSR line, and strengthened interactions among different regions. The social effect of HSR refers to the change in local people’s behavior (such as travel behavior and household mobility) after an HSR station opens. After entering the period of HSR, depending on the availability of HSR, households have been able to change their strategy to “work in one city and live in another city” China built the world’s longest high-speed rail network [36,37]
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