High-speed Rail Stations Research Articles

Evaluation of China's High-Speed Rail Station Development and Nearby Human Activity Based on Nighttime Light Images.

High-speed rail (HSR) represents China’s advancing productivity; however, quite a few HSR stations face problems due to inappropriate planning and limited passenger flow. To optimize future planning on HSR lines and stations and facilitate efficient operation, we used brightness as a representative of station development and nearby human activity, analyzing its spatial and temporal distribution, classification categories, and influencing factors of 980 stations using nighttime light images from 2012 to 2019. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) There are 41 stations with high brightness between 80 and 320 nW·cm−2·sr−1, which are concentrated in provincial capitals, large cities, and at line ends. The overall number of these stations increases by 57% in the past eight years. (2) Stations with high brightness but minimal changes that opened in 2013–2019 are mainly concentrated in provincial capitals and large- or medium-sized cities, and those with high brightness and significant changes are mostly new stations nearby. More than 70% of stations that started HSR operation before or in 2012 have high brightness. (3) Brightness positively correlates with the number of daily trains, and it changes faster at stations with more daily trains. It changes most within 0–1 year after HSR operation opening and exhibits a relatively slow but long-term increase over the next 2–6 years.

Multilevel spatial impact analysis of high-speed rail and station placement: A short-term empirical study of the Taiwan HSR

Understanding the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) services on spatial distributions of population and employment is important for planning and policy concerning HSR station location as well as a wide range of complementary spatial, transportation, and urban planning initiatives. Previous research, however, has yielded mixed results into the extent of this impact and a number of influential factors rarely have been controlled for during assessment. This study aims to address this gap by controlling for socioeconomic and transportation characteristics in evaluating the spatial impacts of HSR (including station placement) at multiple spatial levels to assess overall impact across metropolitan areas. The Taiwan HSR is used for this empirical study. Research methods include descriptive statistics, multilevel analysis, and multiple regression analysis. Findings conclude that HSR-based towns, on average, may experience growing population and employment, but HSR-based counties are likely to experience relatively less growth of employment in the tertiary sector. HSR stations located in urban or suburban settings may have a more significant spatial impact. This differential in spatial change may be attributed to a high concentration of some subsectors and transportation services in the study area. Policy implications include adopting policies that encourage higher density at the local level, considering rural areas as a last choice for the installation of new HSR stations, and the use of HSR station placement to initiate brownfield urban regeneration in the urban core.

HIGH-SPEED RAILWAY AND TOURISM: IS THERE AN IMPACT ON INTERMEDIATE CITIES? EVIDENCE FROM TWO CASE STUDIES IN CASTILLA-LA MANCHA (SPAIN)

The expectations of cities served by High Speed Rail are numerous. Improvements in a destination’s accessibility could lead to an increase in transport demand and the revitalization of urban and business tourism. However, High Speed Rail services do not automatically affect the choice of destination even if they improve accessibility. Even so, they can improve visitation rates when tourist amenities are located near High Speed Rail stations becoming therefore easily accessible. The development of tourism is also influenced by the collective strategies of local stakeholders. Larger cities also appear able to leverage higher tourist volumes from the construction of High Speed Rail and most analyses to date have focused upon them. Thus we focus here on how the arrival of High Speed Rail services has impacted tourism on medium sized cities. Using a diachronic study of different socio-economic variables and tourist features, this article analyses the impact that the new rail infrastructure can have on tourism in two selected cases in Spain: Cuenca and Toledo.

Urban Development around Spanish High-Speed Rail Stations: Plans, Realized Development and Lessons

The article describes the evolution of urban development plans around stations in the Spanish High-Speed Rail network and addresses their eff ectiveness. The research analyses in detail six High-Speed Rail stations which have in common abundant land in their surroundings and some type of plan: two central stations, two city-edge stations and two cases located in peripheral areas. Comparing the implementation of developments planned around stations in these six cases, three potential developing factors have been analysed (structural, socio-economic conjuncture and local strategies) to find similarities and determinants. The article demonstrates that HighSpeed Rail is a good catalyser for urban development and restructuring, but that local conditions are crucial for harnessing its possibilities. High-Speed Rail can strengthen existing tendencies or potentials, while it is much weaker when launching new urban spatial processes.

What is Good Station-Area Planning? Lessons from Experts and Case Studies

As both scholarly literature and experience on the ground indicates, good station-area planning is a very important prerequisite for the eventual successful operation of a high-speed rail (HSR) station. In addition to facilitating the mobility of travellers, good station-area planning can also trigger opportunities for economic development in the station-area and the station-city. This study seeks to: 1. understand the elements of good station-area planning for HSR stations; 2. document what experts consider as prerequisites for good station-area planning; 3. document the elements of good station-area planning in four case studies of successful European stations: Euralille and Lyon Part-Dieu in France, and Ro erdam Centraal and Utrecht Centraal in the Netherlands; and 4. extract lessons and recommendations for new HSR stations. To achieve this we draw from a literature review of station-area planning, a survey of HSR experts from Europe and the US, and visits to the four case study stations.

Evaluating the impacts of HSR stations on the creation of firms

Justified on territorial equity criteria, Spain has developed one of the largest high-speed rail (HSR) network in the world. This research evaluates how the opening of a new station affects the number of firms created at provincial level. We estimate differential impacts on firm creation across four different types of activities: service, tourism, knowledge intensive and manufacturing. The use of panel data makes it possible both to test for the dynamic structure in the data and to provide new insights on the territorial impact of HSR effects. Moreover, we develop a methodological procedure to improve the accuracy of small but positive effects. The results point out that being connected to a HSR network may promote firm creation, but this is not always the case. It has a larger effect in the service, tourism and knowledge intensive activities, whereas in the manufacturing sector the impact is almost null. Regarding the territorial impact, we find that the HSR can reinforce the concentration of firm creation in the biggest cities. Additionally, improving short-distance connections can strengthen agglomeration benefits by enlarging metropolitan areas. Finally, HSR would contribute to increasing the level of divergence in terms of firm creation across provinces. Therefore, our work calls for a rethinking of the strategy of basing investment decisions on territorial equity criteria.

Intermodal Connection of High-Speed Rail with Interregional Bus Services in Japan

An intermodal transportation service consisting of high-speed rail (HSR) and an interregional bus service is one policy option for rural areas where interregional travel demand is too low to justify the construction of HSR. This study reviews current interregional bus services connecting with interregional rail, particularly HSR, in Japan, and analyzes the market potential for improving intermodal transportation by integrating HSR with an interregional bus service. It reviews the current interregional transportation network and related travel demand, including for air, rail, and bus. It also analyzes the connectivity of rail+bus intermodal transportation. The analysis showed poor connectivity of HSR and interregional bus services in Japan. Next, an interregional travel mode choice model is estimated with a nested-logit model using data from the Interregional Travel Survey 2010. Then, origin–destination pairs constituting the potential travel demand of the rail+bus option are identified using simple market analysis. This revealed that origin–destination pairs connecting prefectural cities along the Tohoku Shinkansen (HSR) with Kofu City could gain modal shift from other travel modes to rail+bus through improvement in the connection or introduction of a new interregional bus service connected with HSR. Expected changes in modal shares for rail+bus are estimated through a case study where a connection at the HSR station is hypothetically improved by a newly introduced interregional bus service. This suggests that improvements in connectivity at the HSR station could encourage the intermodal transportation service of rail+bus, even for areas not connected with the HSR network.

The impact of high-speed rail on air quality in counties: Econometric study with data from southern Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, China

High-speed rail (HSR) is considered a safe, fast, comfortable and ecological mode of transportation, which has profoundly changed the way passengers travel. However, how green it is and how it affects county air quality remains to be investigated. Based on panel data of 51 counties in southern Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (Jing-Jin-Ji) from 2014 to 2018, Fixed Effect Model (FEM) and Propensity-Score-Matching and Difference-in-Difference (PSM-DID) methods are used to study the impact of HSR on air quality in counties. FEM is used as the preliminary regression and PSM-DID model is used to avoid the endogenous problem and selection bias. Research shows that HSR has direct and indirect effects on air quality in counties. HSR directly affects it by changing the way of long-distance travel. Furthermore, HSR indirectly affects it by promoting the regional economy, which affects air quality through scale effects, innovation effects and structural effects caused by regional economy development. The results show that the operation of the HSR reduces the air quality index (AQI) by 11.2% and the concentrations of the three major pollutants index, including PM2.5 by 10.1%, PM10 by 14.8% and O3 by 11%. We also find that HSR brings at least 4% more environmental benefits on the side closer to Beijing and Tianjin in southern Jing-Jin-Ji than the farther side. Among the two sides, the closer side has more government concern and economic activities. In addition, we conducted further robustness tests and concluded that HSR improves air quality in counties. This paper provides some policy implications for improving county environmental quality and planning of HSR stations.

The methods and strategies of relay transfer channel on high-speed rail systems

With the rapid development of economy and high-speed rail in china. High-speed rail have been put on the agenda in many provinces. “fast, fast, fast” has become the current theme. Although the high-speed train is fast, the transfer time takes up a lot of time, which makes it “slow down”. There is an urgent need for a tool which enables high-speed trains to maintain high-speed travel and enables passengers to transfer, which can save passengers’ transfer time, avoid the stop at high-speed rail stations.

Stochastic Risk Assessment with a Lagrangian Solution for the Optimal Cost Allocation in High-Speed Rail Networks

In large-scale high-speed rail networks (HSRNs), the occurrence of occasional malfunctions or accidents is unavoidable. The key issue considered in this study is the optimal allocation of the maintenance costs, based on the stochastic risk assessment for HSRNs. Inspired by the theoretical risk evaluation methods in the complex network, three major factors, including the local effects, global effects, and component self-effects are considered in the process of assessing the impact on the network components (nodes or lines). By introducing the component failure occurrence probability, which is considered to be an exponential function changing with the component maintenance costs, a feasible stochastic risk assessment model of the HSRNs together with the component impact assessment is proposed that can better unify the impact assessment of both the high-speed rail stations and railways. An optimal allocation algorithm based on a Lagrangian relaxation approach is designed. Correspondingly, the optimal cost allocation scheme can be determined using the algorithm to eliminate the various HSRN risks under the given costs. Furthermore, a real-world case study of the HSRNs in eastern China is illustrated. Compared with the genetic algorithm, the simulation shows that the approach can solve the optimal cost allocation problem to more effectively reduce the risks of large-scale HSRNs in practice.

Wrestling between central and local: Planning and development of the Wuhan High-Speed Rail Station and its vicinity, China

This paper explores the complexity of multi-tier decision-making in the planning and development of High-Speed Rail (HSR) stations in China, where relationships between central and local governments have been reformed whilst the HSR system has been built at a fast pace. By analysing field interview data and secondary information, the research addresses a key question about whether multi-tier governments play a concerted role in station area planning and development decision-making. The findings reveal that the siting of the station, the planning of the station area, and the development of the different sectors of the HSR station and its vicinity are outcomes of the interplay between the central and the local governments, each of which has their distinctive logic in discharging responsibilities and pursuing interests associated with the projects. In the siting of the Wuhan HSR station, the municipal and central governments interacted actively with each other to safeguard their visions of development, whilst in the planning and development of the station vicinity, both the municipal and the central administrations were passive to collaboration thus foregone an opportunity to develop an integrated HSR station project.

The associations of newly launched high-speed rail stations with industrial gentrification

Industrial gentrification occurs when lower-skill or lower-wage industries are displaced by higher-skill or higher-wage industries caused by various driving forces. This research explored the associations of newly launched high-speed rail (HSR) stations with industrial gentrification. Sample data were obtained from business registration records from 2010 to 2018 for areas surrounding the Hangzhou East Railway Station (a new HSR station in newly developing areas) and Hangzhou Railway Station (a pre-existing rail station in developed areas) in China. Cox proportional hazard regressions were applied to analyze the survival risks of businesses. Empirical results suggest that the newly launched HSR services have induced industrial gentrification in the developed station area. Except for the displacement of agricultural production activities, HSR-induced industrial gentrification has not yet been manifested in the newly developed station area. The latter phenomenon is because of the sufficiently available lands and floor spaces for industrial development and the lower-skill or lower-wage industries and higher-skill or higher-wage industries that benefit from HSR services in the form of revenues.

Impacts of High-Speed Rail Stations Opening on the Regional Innovation Level <br/>—Analysis Based on Scoring Tendency Matching Model

In the background of the era of the “eight horizontal and eight vertical” high-speed rail (HSR), HSR has had a great impact on the location conditions of cities along the route, and the emergence of HSR compresses the “space-time” distance between regions, greatly promoting the flow of factors between regions. This paper analyzes the possible impact of HSR station opening on regional innovation level, tests the impact of HSR station opening on the level of urban innovation by combining the PSM model combined with panel data regression model, carries on the robustness test of the results with the tool variables, and further explores the impact of the influence on the heterogeneity of different characteristic cities. The study found that the opening of HSR stations has a significant positive impact on the improvement of regional innovation level in terms of average effect, but the cities with different locations have significant differences, and the level of urban innovation in the eastern and western regions where HSR stations are not set up is significantly higher than that of cities without HSR stations, while the impact on the eastern region is significantly greater than that of the western regions, but the opening of HSR stations has little impact on the level of urban innovation in the central and western regions, mainly because the eastern region has a good foundation for innovation, and the western region has a highly inclined support policy. This paper thinks that the government should further expand the construction of HSR network, and pay attention to the use of policy means to narrow the differences in the level of innovation between regions.

The Impact of High-speed Rail on House Prices: A Tale of Two Core-Periphery Regions

With unique house transaction data, we study the distributional effect of high-speed rail (HSR) by examining the house price premium of industrial parks in two important core-periphery pairs of China. For “Shanghai-Suzhou” pair, the premium of manufacturing industrial parks grows in the core, but the growth in the periphery area near HSR stations is larger. The premium of service industrial parks grows in the core, but drops in the periphery area far from HSR stations. Such patterns do not hold for “Beijing-Tianjin” pair; we discuss the rationales. Overall, HSR decentralizes (agglomerates) the manufacturing (service) industry from (towards) the core.

Research on spatial planning evaluation of Beijing Shanghai high speed railway station based on node-place model

The construction of high-speed rails is regarded as a major opportunity for urban development by local governments in China, so various grand development plans are actively formulated to promote urban economic development. In this paper, the development of station space is evaluated empirically based on the calculated node and place values of 24 high-speed rail stations along the Beijing-Shanghai line and Bertolini’s “node-place” model. The results show that: (1) The 24 stations along the Beijing-Shanghai line have different development scale, which mostly act as sub-centers of the city, where the real estate industry, modern service industry and cultural industry are dominated in station space planning. Moreover, local governments are optimistic about the accelerant effect of high-speed rail stations whose functional configuration along the line is relatively repeated, because all 24 stations are basically set with business centers. (2) The size of cities along the Beijing-Shanghai line is related to the node value, the higher the urban function level, the greater the node value, with great differences among cities. The node value of big cities is far higher than that of small and medium-sized cities, hence there are node-oriented station areas in big cities and place-oriented ones in middle-sized and small cities. However, there is no direct relationship between the urban function level of stations along the line and the value of urban places. In some small and medium-sized cities, the planning and development intensity and scale of station areas even exceed that of big cities. (3) Only Wuxi station and Nanjing station are in a balanced development state in the space planning of railway stations along the Beijing-Shanghai line. Therefore, the risk of long-term development of station area should be considered in the planning, and reasonable measures should be formulated to promote the sustainable development of station area, so as to form the overall development of Station City.

A comprehensive method for the robustness assessment of high-speed rail network with operation data: A case in China

Abstract High-speed rail (HSR) has become a critical infrastructure and even has formed a network in some countries, which plays an increasingly significant part in the modern transport system and exerts increasingly obvious impacts on regional economic activity and human mobility. Although its interruption may cause serious consequences, researching its robustness doesn’t attract attention until recent years. Based on previous researches on the issue, this paper proposes a comprehensive method to assess the robustness of high-speed rail network (HSRN) by combining the network function features with network topology features and modeling HSRN as a two-layer network based on the high-speed trains running in the network, in which the travel time and passenger flow are taken into account. Finally, taking China’s HSRN (CHSRN) as a case study, this paper investigates the failure effects of HSR stations and high-speed trains on the robustness of CHSRN, especially the space-time failure effects of high-speed trains at three typical HSR stations. Results reveal that the failure effects of trains at the selected stations on the performance of CHSRN are limited, and the failure effects of trains at three typical stations on the performance are different as the different failure time, which is beneficial to prioritize the decisions on maintenance resource allocation and prepare emergency response plans.

What caused differential impacts on high-speed railway station area development? Evidence from global nighttime light data

The capability of High-Speed Rail (HSR) to influence urban development has received considerable attention. However, due to lack of statistical data, there are few studies examining HSR-led urban development from a national perspective. Using the brightness of nighttime lights as a proxy for economic development, this manuscript begins to offer a more complete picture of development around 124 HSR station areas in China. Moreover, the manuscript explores the causes of different development patterns among China's HSR station areas. Empirical results reveal three main findings. 1) HSR station areas with high nighttime light brightness are mainly located in Beijing, Tianjin, Yangtze River delta city cluster and Pearl River delta city cluster. HSR station areas with relatively rapid growth in nighttime light brightness are mostly distributed in Hebei province, Henan province and Anhui province. 2) The level of urban economic development, the level of city rank and the location of HSR stations are three important factors affecting the development of HSR station areas. 3) The factors affecting the development of new and existing HSR station areas are distinct from one another. The influence of the overall urban economic development level on the development of new HSR station areas is larger than such influence on existing station areas where HSR has been added to existing infrastructure. The level of city ranking and the location of HSR stations significantly affect the development around new HSR stations, but have no significant impact on the development surrounding pre-existing HSR stations.

Assessing the role of high-speed rail in shaping the spatial patterns of urban and rural development: A case of the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River, China

China has experienced rapid residential land expansion in both urban and rural areas over the past three decades, causing complex ecological and environmental challenges. Much research attention has been paid on urbanisation, yet little is known about rural development. In this study, we analysed and compared the changes in a selected number of landscape indices describing the spatial patterns of both urban and rural area in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River in central China from 2005 to 2015 and explored how these changes could be associated with the development of high-speed rail (HSR) using spatial error models. We found a partial synchronised spatial development pattern between urban and rural areas in central China, with an increasingly fragmented pattern for both urban and rural areas, albeit rural areas were expanded in a less contiguous but more complex and dispersed fashion. The impacts of the provision of HSR services on the region’s spatial development were found to be multi-level. It was associated with greater urban expansion and dispersion at the county/district level and amplified rural patch size and complexity at the patch level. The departure frequency of HSR trains and proximity to HSR station were found to have affected the magnitude of the impact of HSR service provision on regional spatial development. Our results shed lights on the spatio-temporal evolution of an ecologically important region, add new evidence into the expanding fields of urban and rural morphological studies in China, and provide valuable decision support information for integrated spatial planning of transportation and land use.

Influence of Rapid Transit on Accessibility Pattern and Economic Linkage at Urban Agglomeration Scale in China

Abstract The development of high-speed railways has become an important factor influencing regional pattern changes in China. In this study, an accessibility evaluation model was constructed in combination with regional scale and regional center city to research the effect of high-speed rails on accessibility in the South Jiangsu, an urban agglomeration in China. Based on accessibility index, urban economic and social statistics data were used in conjunction with a gravity model to analyze the characteristics and evolvement of economic relations in this area. The result shows that high-speed rails improve overall regional accessibility, significantly benefit regions along rail lines, and makes middle- and long-distance journeys more convenient for the general public. High-speed rails play a particularly dominant role in the evolution of economic linkage and effectively strengthen the ties between cities. When the bonds between cities along rail lines greatly improve, a basic framework of economic relations is formed. Finally this paper discusses the imbalance arising from the effect of high-speed rails, proposing such suggestions as improving urban traffic and building expressways that connect high-speed rail stations in marginal areas to improve accessibility.

Impact of High-Speed Rail on Cultural Tourism Development: The Experience of the Spanish Museums and Monuments

Although transport infrastructure is one of the prominent factors that make Spain a major tourist destination, the international literature has revealed that the opening of new High-Speed Rail (HSR) lines is not sufficient by itself in order to increase tourist outputs in the new connected destinations. Nevertheless, the roles played by different characteristics of both travelers and destinations are of interest but they still remain not sufficiently explored. This paper focuses on the role played by HSR in fostering cultural tourism by applying a fixed-effect econometric model to a panel database (1988–2017). The database includes the number of tourists to some of the major Spanish cultural centers. The results show different impacts based on the regions, the characteristics of the museums, and the expected tourists. For destinations with previous cultural attraction, a positive effect is more evident. Moreover, the centrality of the HSR station as an enabling factor as well as the growth of the tourist market to the surrounding municipalities has been detected. Another interesting result is related to the cooperation effect between HSR and air transport, which encourages the arrivals of foreign tourists. These findings should help planners to develop policies that optimize tourist revenues by exploiting the potential of HSR development in the future.