The Regional and Local Scale Evolution of the Spatial Structure of High-Speed Railway Networks—A Case Study Focused on Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration

Dan He,Jing Zhou,Tao Pei,Zixuan Chen

doi:10.3390/ijgi10080543

Abstract

China has entered an era of rapid high-speed railway (HSR) development and the spatial structure of urban agglomerations will evolve in parallel with the development and evolution of the spatial structure of the HSR network. In this study, we explore how the spatial structure of an HSR network evolves at regional and local scales. Existing research into HSR network structures has mostly been carried out at a regional scale, and has therefore failed to reveal the spatial connections within a city. In this work, we progress the science by exploring it at a local scale. To describe the HSR network more accurately, we use the dwell time to simulate the passenger flow between stations and use the simulated passenger flow as the network weight. We use complex network analysis to investigate the evolution of the network’s spatial structure. Our results present the evolution of station locations, of community structure, and of the locations of connections between stations at a regional scale, and also show how HSR network development within core cities has impacted structures and connectivity at a local scale. These results help us to understand the spatial structure of urban agglomerations and cities, and provide evidence that can be used to optimize the structure of the HSR network within regions and cities.

Highlights

The high-speed railway (HSR) has made commuting between cities very convenient and has had a significant impact on economic development, ecology, and land use within cities [1,2,3,4,5]
From 2014 to 2020, the position of HSR stations in Beijing declined, the decline has been shallower than the trend for denser line networks in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration
The first is that we use the eigenvector centrality to obtain the position of each station in the HSR network, but this indicator does not consider the weight of the passenger flow between the stations, and analyzes the position of the station from the network topology, i.e., the topological connection between the station and other stations

Summary

Introduction

The high-speed railway (HSR) has made commuting between cities very convenient and has had a significant impact on economic development, ecology, and land use within cities [1,2,3,4,5]. China attaches great importance to the role of HSR in urban economic development, starting with the opening of the Beijing-Tianjin Inter-city Railway in. The HSR network is related to the status and function of cities in urban agglomerations, and to the structure of spatial 4.0/). Studying the spatial evolution of an HSR network may be helpful for understanding the evolution of the spatial structure of urban agglomerations, and the function and status of cities within urban agglomerations, and may provide insights useful for optimizing the spatial structure of urban agglomerations and for accelerating their integration

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion