High-speed Passenger Rail Research Articles

Towards a Personalized Seat Selection System of High-Speed Rail Based on Feasibility and Desirability

To conduct this research, we identified the current high-speed rail (HSR) market and passenger experience satisfaction with HSR. Then, we developed a personalized seat selection system that could assign passengers to different seats based on their own preferences by collecting their basic information. In the current HSR field, the existing research mainly focuses on improving hardware, such as seat comfort, high-speed rail traveling speed, and high-speed rail traveling smoothness. It does not consider travelers' environmental preferences and individual needs to a great extent. After several weeks of market research through the questionnaire and 4P model study, we concluded that the vast majority of passengers are dissatisfied with the current travel environment full of interruptions and are really willing to use a system that will improve their travel comfort. Therefore, the system will be added to a few major OTA platforms as a plug-in in order to reach a large number of potential customers. After that, we designed many features for our system based on the needs and interests of our target customers, as shown in the survey results, to confirm the desirability and feasibility of our product.

Short-term high-speed rail passenger flow prediction by integrating ensemble empirical mode decomposition with multivariate grey support vector machine

Short-term prediction of high-speed rail (HSR) passenger flow provides a daily ridership estimation for the near future, which is critical to HSR planning and operational decision making. This paper proposes a new methodology that integrates ensemble empirical mode decomposition with multivariate support vector machines (EEMD-MSVM). There are four steps in this hybrid forecasting approach: (i) explore the correlation of multivariate HSR passenger flows at various stations based on archived data; (ii) decompose empirical modes of historical passenger flows for each HSR station, using EEMD to generate a number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and a trend term; (iii) predict the IMF for each correlated station pair using MSVM; and (iv) reconstruct the refined IMF components to predict daily multivariate HSR passenger flows. The proposed EEMD-MSVM approach is demonstrated with multiple OD pairs along the Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR in China. Results from various origin-destination pairs, show that the EEMD-MSVM approach outperforms the existing ensemble empirical mode decomposition with grey support vector machine approach (EEMD-GSVM). With the multivariate approach, the mean absolute percentage error in demand prediction is reduced by 13.9%, 1.2%, 1.0%, 2.0%, and 2.7% and the mean absolute deviation is reduced by 78.8, 38.0, 4.4, 4.6, and 3.9, between these OD pairs respectively. Such increase in short-term demand prediction accuracy can significantly improve HSR service planning, operations, and revenue management in the real world.

Ranking methodology to prioritize high-speed railway corridors

Abstract The purpose of this article is to create and calibrate a high-speed rail passenger traffic-based ranking model using historical high-speed rail ridership data from Spain. The existing literature is scarce, and the models used have several main issues, such as arbitrariness, and not representing the real relations of variables. These models are analysed using real-world high-speed rail data; and improved by calibration with the data. Based on the results, I demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of these models and propose a new model by combining the strong aspects of these models. I also show the importance of intermediate cities for the estimated ridership of an HSR corridor. The study develops our understanding of the ranking models and provides a more promising ranking solution as a contribution to high-speed rail planning.

Sitting comfort analysis and prediction for high-speed rail passengers based on statistical analysis and machine learning

Various comfort evaluation models have been extensively studied for improving driver seat and office seat designs for the purpose of improving seat comfort. High-speed rail (HSR) seat comfort is influenced by specific environments, activities, and postures, and targeted in-depth research on this topic is lacking. Existing evaluation cannot ensure the validity of data at the early stages of model training because of their direct reliance on subjective evaluation data, thereby limiting the improvement in the accuracy of prediction. In this study, we designed a sitting observation experiment and static sitting comfort experiment for the typical activities of HSR passengers. The sitting posture of HSR passengers under typical activities was classified for different comfort levels based on the factors influencing the sitting posture in terms of bone and muscle biomechanics. The correlations between the subjective discomfort in different sitting positions, objective change patterns, and body pressure distribution parameters were statistically analysed. The possibility of using sitting duration and sitting frequency as objective behavioural indicators of discomfort evaluation was indicated. Based on the verification of the reliability of the evaluation data, the classification performance of various machine learning algorithms was compared and analysed, and a sitting comfort prediction model was established based on the gradient boosting machine algorithm, with an accuracy of 89.5%. This study serves as an effective reference for improvement strategies for HSR passenger comfort and will inspire new ideas for exploring objective indicators for sitting comfort evaluation.

A Study on the Utility Measurements and Influencing Factors of High-Speed Rail and Air Passenger Travel

The increase in travel mode options has led to changes in the travel decision-making behaviors of passengers and differences in spatial patterns of the markets of high-speed rail and air travel. Taking China’s central cities as the research subject, we analyze the spatial differentiation characteristics of high-speed rail and air transportation markets from a geographic perspective based on the passenger travel utility function. We analyze the influence on passenger travel decision-making behavior from the perspectives of the socioeconomic level and fare structure. The findings show that in the central city transportation market, passengers have a stronger preference for air travel. However, there are differences between regions, with high-speed rail dominating more in the partial north and air focusing on the partial south. As the value of time per capita increases, the dominant range of air travel gradually increases, while the dominant range of high-speed rail travel is compressed to some extent. An increase in fares does not cause a significant decrease in air demand; however, a reduction in fares leads to an increase in air passenger travel satisfaction.

Private agendas and the public good: The contested development of high-speed passenger rail transport in the United States

During the 1960s, the United States Department of Commerce (and later the Department of Transportation) cooperated with the Pennsylvania Railroad (later, Penn Central) to develop the Metroliner, an American version of the Japanese Shinkansen. Federal officials possessed overtly political motives, including an effort to build political support for the Democratic Party in the heavily urbanized Northeast. Railroad executives sought federal subsidies for conventional rail passenger service, while building political support for the largest merger in American history. The conflicting agendas precluded the development of high-speed surface transportation in the United States.

Moonshots to Nowhere? The Metroliner and Failed High-Speed Rail in the United States, 1962–1977

In September 1962, President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to send and return astronauts to the Moon by the close of the decade. So-called “moon shots” like the Apollo Program of the 1960s became emblematic of a new paradigm in federally-funded research and development: large in scale, ambitious in scope, technologically challenging, and most importantly public facing. The success of the moon landings, in turn, inspired federal policymakers to seek similarly ambitious moon shots in other domains including communications, energy, housing, and transportation. The moonshot paradigm, however, proved to be a poor fit when applied in civilian settings. Drawing upon original archival research, this paper details government-led efforts to implement high-speed passenger rail along the Northeast Corridor. The moonshot paradigm saddled this program in no-win scenarios, encouraging implementing agencies to overstate program benefits, underestimate their costs, and ignore technological complexity and risk.

Sustainable Mechanism of the Entrusted Transportation Management Mode on High-Speed Rail and the Impact of COVID-19: A Case Study of the Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Rail

The transport management mode fundamentally determines the sustainable development of high-speed rail passenger transport (HSRPT), which was shocked by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In order to study the sustainable development mechanism of HSRPT and the impact of COVID-19, primarily based on the data from the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed rail (HSR) taken from 2018, we adopt system dynamics (SD) to provide a scenario simulation method to examination sustainable operation status of HSRPT under the entrusted transportation management mode (ETMM) by VENSIM, and take into account the following two evaluation indicators: economic and operational. The results show the following: (1) Transportation demand and commissioned transportation management fees play a vital role in the sustainable operation of the Beijing–Shanghai HSR, causing significant changes in transportation revenue and transportation costs. (2) COVID-19 had a great impact on the sustainable operation of the Beijing–Shanghai HSR. In 2020, the turnover and transportation profit of the Beijing–Shanghai HSR fell by 74.31% and 49.19%, respectively. In 2022, the transportation profit can be restored to the level of 2019. The study results reveal that Beijing–Shanghai HSR under the ETMM has a good sustainable development capability.

Characteristics of the evolution of the industrial structure of the high-speed railway station area under the influence of location factors

At present, the large-scale construction of the high-speed railway is in the stage of accelerated urbanization, and the industrial space of the high-speed railway station area has also emerged with many problems in its development. This paper takes the current characteristics of China's high-speed railway construction and the problems faced by the current industrial space in station areas as a starting point. Six urban central and fringe station areas are selected as research cases to explore the characteristics of location factors on the industrial structure and spatial aggregation of high-speed railway station areas. The study finds that the early service system of urban central stations is more complete than that of urban fringe stations, and the industrial structure of fringe stations changes more obviously and is more influenced by the economic impact of high-speed rail passenger flow; the increase in the number of enterprises in urban central stations and fringe station areas is spatially directional, while the overall clustering pattern shows an opposite trend.

ВЫСОКОСКОРОСТНЫЕ ЖЕЛЕЗНЫЕ ДОРОГИ В СТРАНАХ ВОСТОКА – ОПЫТ СТРОИТЕЛЬСТВА И ЭКСПЛУАТАЦИИ

The advent of high-speed rail reflects the developments in transportation that accompanies the new phase of the industrial revolution. In the article, the author analyzes the features of the construction and operation of high-speed railways in the countries of the East. Special attention is paid to the use of foreign technologies and investments. Under the sanctions imposed on Russia, this experience can be useful for the development of Russian highspeed rail passenger transportation.

The impact of intercity economic complementarity on HSR volume in the context of megalopolization

Driven by the regional integration, intercity economic complementarity and cooperation are enhanced in the context of megalopolization. Due to the increasing interaction and intensified connection between cities, this study attempts to investigate the impact of megalopolization on intercity human mobility from the perspective of complementary employment composition. The variation of differences in the composition of employment by industry sector between cities is identified through socioeconomic statistics in the recent decade. By using passenger flow data generated from ticket sales records, this study explores how economic complementarity affects high-speed rail (HSR) volume considering spatial dependence in megalopolises. The results show that HSR volume tends to be higher between cities with more distinct employment composition, and it is consistent with the existing studies that population size and economic output are positively correlated to the HSR passenger demand. Finally, the implication of different economy planning strategies is assessed to further highlight the interdependence between regional economic patterns and transportation activities.

High-Speed Passenger Railway Transportation: Priority for Long-Term Developmen

High-speed passenger railway transportation is one of the priorities of scientific and technological development for most of the leading world railway companies that have global plans for construction of new high-speed rail lines (HSR).General review refers to plans of selected countries regarding construction of high-speed railways and the priority technologies/solutions required for the efficient provision of high-speed passenger services, as well as to costs and advantages associated with HSR construction. Besides, comparison of promising technology and adopted technical solutions is followed by assessment of their readiness level, and by features of HS trains operated by leading companies. Most important technologies comprise intelligent systems of autonomous train operation, remote traffic control, digital simulation of interaction of rolling stock and infrastructure, automated decision support systems, geospatial infrastructure monitoring, and real-time remote condition monitoring of rolling stock and infrastructure.Conclusions drawn argue in favour of promising character of research in the field of breakthrough technology conducted by railways, possibilities for Russia to join the countries with most advanced high-speed rail passenger transportation.

Competition between high-speed rail and airlines: Considering both passenger and cargo

With the global express delivery industry growing rapidly, the service that uses high-speed rail (HSR) passenger trains to carry parcels has been introduced in China, signaling that the competition between HSR and air transport is no longer limited to the passenger sector. In this paper, we build a simple model to study the competition between air and rail in both the passenger market and the cargo market. We consider the transport operators face passengers directly but they rely on a forwarder at the downstream for the cargo service. Three scenarios are investigated: 1) both the passenger and the cargo sectors are only served by air transport; 2) the passenger sector is served by both air transport and HSR while the cargo sector is only served by air transport; and 3) both sectors are served by both transport modes. We find that when airlines use aircraft belly to transport cargo while the belly capacity is limited, it is possible that introducing HSR as a competitor in the passenger sector is social welfare deteriorating. However, social welfare will always be improved if HSR enters not only the passenger sector but also the cargo sector.

Impact of high-speed rail on the operational capacity of conventional rail in China

Although many studies have evaluated the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) development on transportation connectivity and accessibility, it remains unclear to what extent the introduction of HSR may influence the operational capacities of freight and conventional passenger rail services. This paper addresses this question by examining the spatial and temporal variations of transport capacities of different rail systems. In addition, the interaction effects of different rail systems were investigated using a structural equation model. The results reveal that the spatial and temporal evolution of operational capacity varies significantly among freight, conventional passenger, and high-speed passenger rail systems. Moreover, HSR was found to have a substitutional effect on conventional passenger rail, although the effects vary spatially in different corridors. Furthermore, the operational capacity of conventional passenger rail is negatively associated with that of freight rail, which confirms that a service cut in conventional passenger rail contributes to an increase in the capacity of freight rail. The analysis also demonstrates that HSR promotes the expansion of freight rail capacity through its substitutional effect on conventional passenger rail. These findings provide important implications for transportation planners to optimize operational plans, in order to improve the performance of various rail services.

A Qualitative Study on Providing Alternative Solutions for Handling the HSR Passenger\u2019s Luggage

The objective of this paper is to look at the problem of high-speed rail (HSR) passengers’ luggage and provide alternative solutions to improve luggage handling. A qualitative study is carried out to assess the current state of HSR practices, analyse existing issues with HSR passenger luggage and provide alternative solutions, including modification of the passenger unit, double-deck rolling stock, an additional train for transporting luggage, and repositioning of passenger seats. Four solutions are discussed that could solve the problem of HSR passenger luggage handling and evaluated from four aspects namely passengers, railway operator, cost and passenger comfort level. The solution of additional trains for transporting luggage may be the preferred solution when compared with other options, without compromising the comfort of the passengers or the profit of the railway company.

High Speed Rail Passenger Satisfaction according to Socio-Demographic Variables in Turkey

High Speed Rail Passenger Satisfaction according to Socio-Demographic Variables in Turkey

Online-review analysis based large-scale group decision-making for determining passenger demands and evaluating passenger satisfaction: Case study of high-speed rail system in China

High-speed rail (HSR) has become an essential mode of public transportation in China and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. To promote the development of the HSR industry, a high level of passenger satisfaction must be ensured, which means that passenger satisfaction must be assured. Focusing on HSR in-cabin factors that affect the travel experience of HSR passengers, this study aims to determine passenger demands (PDs) and to evaluate passenger satisfaction by using a combination of online review analysis and large-scale group decision-making (LSGDM). By using web crawler technology, online reviews related to HSR were harvested from a microblogging platform to extract PD data and information. The six PDs that reflect the most frequent concerns of passengers were identified by analyzing the online reviews. The level of satisfaction of passengers with respect to these PDs was analyzed based on the online responses from 100 HSR passengers and by adopting the interval-valued two-tuple linguistic representation model. The final degrees of satisfaction and rankings of the PDs were then determined by using the LSGDM approach with the k-means clustering method and a consensus-reaching process. This research thus constructs an index system of HSR passenger satisfaction evaluation based on online-review analysis and evaluates the process by using LSGDM approaches. The conclusions provide insights into the improvements desired by HSR passengers for in-cabin services and to improve passenger satisfaction.

Empirical Analysis of Relieving High-Speed Rail Freight Congestion in China

This paper discusses how to promote high-speed rail (HSR) freight business by solving the congestion problem. First, we define the existing operation modes in China and propose the idea of relieving congestion by reserving more carriages of HSR passenger trains for freight between cities with large potential volume or small capacity. Second, we take one HSR corridor as a case to study, and use predictive regression and integrated time series methods to forecast the growth of HSR freight volume along the corridor. Finally, combined with forecast results and available capacity during the peak month of 2018, we offer suggestions on the mode adoption in each segment during the peak month from 2019 to 2022. Results demonstrate: (1) Among all 84 Origin-Destination (OD) city flows, the percentage of those monthly volumes over 1 ton increases from 17.9% in 2018 to 84.6% in 2022, and those over 30 tons rise from 3.6% to 26.2%. (2) Among the segments between seven main cities in the HSR corridor, T-J should be given priority to operate trains with reserved mode; the segment between X and J deserves to reserve most carriages during the peak month in the future. Specifically, our model suggests reserving 5.3–10.1 carriages/day for J-X, and 4.8–16.3 carriages/day for X-J during the peak month from 2019 to 2022.

The Influence of the Air Cargo Network on the Regional Economy under the Impact of High-Speed Rail in China

There is little research on the impact of air cargo networks on regional economic development, which is especially notable considering that Chinese airlines gradually adjusted their networks after the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR). This empirical study aims to fill this research gap. Firstly, we used the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method to study the effect of the air cargo network on the regional economy. The results show that, in eastern and central China, the higher the clustering coefficient of the domestic air cargo network, the more significant their promotion effect becomes on the GDP per capita, with cities in eastern China benefitting the most from this effect. However, for super-scale cities, the clustering coefficient of the domestic air cargo network has a significant negative effect on the GDP per capita, which is likely because both the air and HSR passenger services crowd out the development opportunities for air cargo. Secondly, we applied the Difference-in-Difference (DID) method in order to measure the impact on the regional economy caused by air cargo under the impact of HSR. The results show that the aviation network adjusted for the impact of HSR produces heterogeneous effects on cities for different regions and scales, and that the international aviation network has greater impacts on cities than the domestic network. In eastern China, HSR and air cargo (both international and domestic networks) promote economic growth simultaneously; in central China, only domestic air cargo has a positive effect on the regional economy; in western China, neither HSR nor air cargo has an obvious effect on the regional economy. Policy implications—such as encouraging the cooperation of HSR and civil aviation—are discussed, and could help bring the functions of the air cargo network in regional economic development into full play.

Identifying and prioritizing factors affecting in-cabin passenger comfort on high-speed rail in China: A fuzzy-based linguistic approach

Factors affecting customer comfort are crucial for the success of many services such as public transportation, health facilities, and so on. Therefore, the identification and prioritization of such factors is an important demand from stakeholders. This research aims to identify and prioritize the factors that affect in-cabin passenger comfort on high-speed rail (HSR) based on empirical evidence collected from China. For the identification process, the quality-management tool known as quality function deployment (QFD) to capture the voice of the customer is used to discover the most important demands as the driving influencing factors of in-cabin passenger comfort, by utilizing passengers’ feedback regarding their experiences with HSR posted in social media. Such factors will be prioritized by a fuzzy linguistic group decision-making approach based on the adoption of generalized comparative linguistic expressions obtained from a questionnaire investigation on randomly selected HSR passengers, and accomplishing a decision-solving procedure that includes consistency-checking and consensus-reaching processes to achieve an effective, reliable, and agreed prioritization of the factors. The research outputs will suggest the factors of greatest concern among all HSR passenger demands. This study gives HSR operators and designers not only insights and tools for managing HSR passenger demands but also advice for refining the design and service quality of HSR in China.