Introduction Of High-speed Rail Research Articles

Can the Opening of High-speed Rail Promote Green Innovation Behavior of Enterprises: Evidence from China

This study utilizes the quasi-natural experiment of China's high-speed rail opening and examines the impact on corporate green innovation using green patent data from Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies between 2007 and 2021.The difference-in-difference model is employed to empirically test the relationship between high-speed rail opening and corporate green innovation, as well as to analyze the underlying mechanisms driving this relationship. The research findings indicate a significant positive association between China's high-speed rail opening and enterprise green innovation, indicating an improvement in green innovation levels following the introduction of high-speed rail. The impact mechanism involves the enhancement of government governance capacity and overall factor productivity within enterprises. Further sub-sample test found that the opening of high-speed rail promoted enterprises' green innovation mainly in enterprises with low environmental uncertainty and enterprises in central and western regions.

Impacts of public service supply on the tourism industry in the high-speed rail era: Evidence from the central regions of China

Using panel data encompassing Central China’s cities from 2008 to 2019, our study employs the Spatial Autoregression (SAR) and the Spatial Difference-in-Differences (SDID) models to assess both the localized and spillover effects of public service provision on tourism. Additionally, our research explores the pivotal role of High-Speed Rail (HSR) as a moderating factor, shedding light on its influence on the relationship between public service supply and the advancement of tourism. Our study reveals that public service supply exerts a significant and even substantial impact on tourism development. Moreover, it demonstrates that the provision of public services contributes positively to the growth of tourism in neighboring cities. Further analysis indicates that the introduction of HSR has a robust influence on enhancing public service supply to stimulate tourism development. These findings offer invaluable insights for the promotion of tourism development.

The substitution effect of high-speed rail on civil aviation in China

China's high-speed rail (HSR) network has had a marked effect on civil aviation transport and CO2 emissions. We conduct a quantitative analysis of the substitution effect during the period 2008–2017 using the difference-in-difference method. We find that (1) the introduction and operation of the HSR network of four vertical and four horizontal lines has had a significantly negative effect on the civil aviation service. Overall, the numbers of passenger flights and air passengers fell by 28.7% and 31.8%, respectively, following the introduction of HSR. (2) HSR is most competitive when trip or operating times are less than 4 h (3) For operating times within 6 h, or trips of about 1400 km, HSR enjoys an obvious competitive advantage over civil aviation. (4) Planning is underway for an expanded HSR network comprising eight vertical and eight horizontal lines. On completion, an additional 833 flight routes compared with the current HSR network and the rate of substitution of HSR for civil aviation flights will increase by 8.8%. Taking into account an increase in rail speed for passages along rivers and coastal areas, the substitution rate of HSR will increase by a further 0.7%. (5) HSR development will have obvious CO2 emissions reduction effect on aviation transport.

Has transportation infrastructure development improved the quality of economic growth in China’s cities? A quasi-natural experiment based on the introduction of high-speed rail

We use 284 Chinese cities over 2005–2018 to analyze the impact of introducing high-speed rail (HSR) on urban economic growth quality. We found that the introduction of HSR can promote urban economic growth. Five years after introducing HSR, it plays a significant role in promoting economic growth quality. A heterogeneity analysis shows that its introduction can promote this economic growth in regional centers and non-central cities, where the promotion effect is greater for regional centers. For cities in different regions, HSR has a greater impact on economic growth in eastern cities followed by central cities. Moreover, the most notable impact of HSR is on urban economic development dynamics. Therefore, the government should adopt differentiated policies when formulating regional strategies to improve urban economic growth quality.

High-Speed Rail Development and Regional Inequalities: Evidence From Japan

This study investigates the impact of the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) on regional income and innovation, focusing on peripheral regions in Japan. Average income per capita (IN) and number of patent applications per employee (PA) are assumed to represent regional income and innovation, respectively. “Peripheries” are defined based on each municipality’s employment density and its accessibility, the latter is measured by effective density, an index representing interregional communication opportunities. Municipality-level panel data from Japan for a 40-year period are used. A difference-in-differences analysis of municipalities with variable treatment timings is employed to investigate the impact of HSR on the IN and PA of peripheries. The findings indicate that the introduction of HSR has been able to contribute to the mitigation of regional inequalities by positively affecting the IN and PA of peripheries. Furthermore, the results estimated with the accessibility-based peripheries show that the impacts of HSR on IN are smaller and on PA are larger in these peripheries than in core regions. These suggest the crucial role that accessibility may play in peripheries for catching up with the economic growth of core regions, particularly in a context of geographical concentration of economic activities, as in the case of Japan. It is also argued that the enhanced PA in peripheries with poor accessibility might not have been well exploited for economic gains because of their underdeveloped industrial structures and distance to large hub cities, leading to challenges in catching up.

Fraud commitment in a smaller world: Evidence from a natural experiment

This study examines the effect of proximity on corporate fraud commitment using the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) as an exogenous shock to travel time. We find that firms commit less corporate fraud after the introduction of an HSR route. A dynamic difference-in-differences (DiD) analysis shows that the effect of HSR introduction on fraud only occurs after the HSR route is launched, supporting the parallel trends assumption and confirming the causal relationship. Further analysis shows that the negative impact of HSR introduction on corporate fraud is more pronounced for firms that have higher information asymmetry or weaker monitoring mechanisms in the pre-HSR period. In addition, we find that HSR introduction increases corporate site visits by external monitors and that visits significantly reduce corporate misbehavior. Overall, our findings suggest that HSR introduction increases proximity and thereby reduces the information acquisition costs for outside monitors. As a result, outside monitors are in a better position to oversee firms, leading to decreased fraud commitment.

Transportation Infrastructure and Analyst Earnings Forecasts: Evidence from High-Speed Rails in China

ABSTRACT This study examines the effect of high-speed rails on analyst earnings forecasts in Chinese context. The results based on a difference-in-difference design show that the introduction of high-speed rail improves analyst earnings forecast accuracy. The positive association is stronger for firms located in regions with less developed institutional environments, firms with fewer intangible assets, and firms located farther away from information centers. In addition, high-speed rails increase analysts’ likelihood and frequency of site visits. Overall, we extend the literature on economic geography and financial analysts, and shed lights on how transportation infrastructure facilitates information exchange in capital markets.

On the fast track: Information acquisition costs and information production

Using the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) as an exogenous shock to costs of information acquisition, we show reductions in information-acquisition costs lead to (i) a significant increase in information production, evidenced by a higher frequency of analysts visiting portfolio firms and (ii) improvement in output quality, manifested in higher forecast accuracy and better recommendations. The effect is more pronounced for firms with information that is difficult to produce. Importantly, more information production is also associated with improved price efficiency. We corroborate these findings using a large-scale survey of financial analysts. Finally, both the empirical and survey results highlight the importance of soft information in analysts’ unique-information production.

Rail Accessibility in Germany: Changing Regional Disparities between 1990 and 2020

Transport accessibility is an important location factor for households and firms. In the last few decades, technological and social developments have contributed to a reinvigorated role of passenger transport. However, rail accessibility is unevenly distributed in space. The introduction of high-speed rail has furthermore promoted a polarisation of accessibility between metropolises and peripheral areas in some European countries. In this article we analyse the development of rail accessibility at the regional level in Germany between 1990 and 2020 for 266 functional city-regions. Our results show two different facets: The number of regions that are directly connected to one another has decreased, but at the same time the spatial disparities of accessibility have decreased, albeit to a small extent. This development was strongest in East Germany after German reunification and thus largely a consequence of the renovation of the conventional rail infrastructure, not high-speed rail. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that the introduction of high-speed traffic in Germany did not lead to an increase in accessibility disparities. Instead, the accessibility effects of high-speed rail in Germany seem to break the traditional dichotomy between core and periphery.

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.

On the Fast Track: Information Acquisition Costs and Information Production

Using the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) as an exogenous shock to costs of information acquisition, we show reductions in information-acquisition costs lead to (i) a significant increase in information production, evidenced by a higher frequency of analysts visiting portfolio firms, and (ii) improvement in output quality, manifested in higher forecast accuracy and better recommendations. The effect is more pronounced for firms with information that is difficult to produce. Importantly, more information production is also associated with improved price efficiency. We corroborate these findings using a large-scale survey of financial analysts. Finally, both the empirical and survey results highlight the importance of soft information in analysts’ unique-information production.

On the Fast Track: Information Acquisition Costs and Information Production

Using the introduction of high-speed rail as exogenous shocks to costs of information acquisition, we show that reductions in information-acquisition costs lead to a significant increase in information production and improvement in output quality, evidenced by higher frequency of analysts visiting portfolio firms, and higher forecast accuracy. We further find that information production represents the channel through which acquisition costs affect output quality. We corroborate these findings using a large-scale survey of financial analysts. More information production is also associated with improved price efficiency. Finally, both the empirical and survey results highlight the importance of soft information in analysts’ information production.

Analyzing competition between High Speed Rail and Bus mode using market entry game analysis

Abstract The introduction of High Speed Rail (HSR) changes the dynamics of the passenger transport therefore understanding the market scenario after the entry of the HSR is of utmost importance. In this study, a market entry game is analysed in the context of High Speed Rail competing with the bus mode on the Bangalore-Mysore corridor. The game is modelled as an extensive form game whose outcome will determine the strategies of the players in the competitive scenario. A discrete choice model is constructed using revealed and stated preference data to compute the modal share in the hypothetical scenario. Utilities in terms of profit for each mode is calculated using assumed cost functions for different strategies of the mode operators. These utilities are then used to form the basis for the extensive form game for the market entry. The extensive form game (with and without perfect information) is analyzed by computing the sub game perfect Nash equilibrium of the game which determines best strategies for each player under different demand scenarios. This study therefore provides a scientific tool for policy makers to analyze best strategies for players under different demand scenarios thereby aiding in decision making.

Would competition between air transport and high-speed rail benefit environment and social welfare?

We develop a duopoly model to analyze the impact of air transport and high-speed rail (HSR) competition on the environment and social welfare. We show that the introduction of HSR may have a net negative effect on the environment, since it may result in additional demand, i.e., there is a trade-off between the substitution effect and the traffic generation effect. Furthermore, if environmental externalities are taken into account when assessing social welfare, the surplus measure may be higher when only air transport serves the market than when the two modes compete. When the airline and the HSR operator decide frequencies, the airline reduces the aircraft size in order to keep load factors high while offering lower frequency and carrying fewer passengers. In these circumstances, the introduction of HSR may be beneficial to the environment on a per seat basis only if the market size is large enough. When the HSR operator decides speed, it has incentive to keep it at the maximum level in order to reduce travel time. When the increase in the emissions of HSR due to the increase in the speed of the train is sufficiently high, the overall level of emissions grows after the introduction of HSR. Therefore, there can be a trade-off between the attractiveness of the service due to reduced travel time and the effects on the environment.

Logit Model-Based Research on Market Position of Jing-Hu High Speed Rail

This paper aims to analyze how the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) influences the market structure in the Beijing-Shanghai passenger corridor of China.First of all, through the analysis of travel behavior characteristics of this passenger corridor, the logit model is constructed to analyze the market share among the modes of high-speed rail (HSR), existing railway lines, air transportation and highway. Secondly, based on the survey data , the parameters of logit model are calibrated by using transcad software.Then the market share ratio for all transport modes of Beijing-Shanghai passenger corridor is calculated through the calibrated logit model. Finally, this paper makes some research on how the air transportation influences the new HSR in terms of market share. This paperprovides several scenarios of market share ratio of high-speed rail (HSR) and makes a comparison among thembased on the hypothesis that the market influence of the air transportation is improved by adopting efficient and effective measures.

A Review of Ex-Post Evidence for Mode Substitution and Induced Demand Following the Introduction of High-Speed Rail

ABSTRACTTo date, relatively little is known about the nature of the demand for high-speed rail (HSR) soon after inauguration of the services, despite close to 50-year experience of HSR operation and 17 166 km of HSR network around the world. This is a real lacuna given the scale of HSR construction around the world, the amount of resources committed to it, the desired accessibility, economic and environmental effects associated with HSR development and the relatively poor track record of forecasting demand for HSR services. Focusing on mode substitution and induced demand effects, this review aims to fill the gap in knowledge about the ex-post demand for HSR services in order to facilitate a learning process for the planning of the future HSR network. Although there is not much evidence on the demand for HSR services and existing evidence is largely influenced by route-specific characteristics, a methodological limitation that must be acknowledged, the evidence presented allows a better characterisation of HSR as a mode of transport. The review shows that the demand for HSR a few years after inauguration is about 10–20% induced demand and the rest is attributed to mode substitution. In terms of mode substitution, in most cases the majority of HSR passengers have used the conventional rail before. Substitution from aircraft, car and coach is generally more modest.

High-speed rail: will it change the dynamics of US intercity passenger travel?

As both the skies and highways become more crowded, travellers continue to look for cheaper and efficient alternatives. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, commonly known as Amtrak, faces increased pressure to meet this need. Notorious for failing to meet on-time standards as well as operating consistently at a loss, discussions of the implementation of high-speed rail (HSR) projects has caused increased optimism in the future of US intercity passenger rail. This study reports on research conducted in 2009 comparing US air carriers and highway travel with current Amtrak service. A discussion of HSR is included with an examination of the effects it could have on intercity transportation. Our conclusion is that Amtrak continues to compete ineffectively despite an increase in popularity and any introduction of HSR will require significant changes to current intercity rail travel system.

Accessibility impacts of high-speed rail

Most high-speed rail (HSR) networks being proposed in the United States will be in a hub-and-spoke pattern. This article discusses some of the disadvantages of this system, and questions the need for a high-speed rail system at all. While a hub-and-spoke architecture benefits the hub city and offers economies of density in track usage, it is less certain that hubs will ultimately benefit economically from the introduction of HSR. Research from objective studies suggest that, although there are positive accessibility benefits in metropolitan areas served by HSR, there are negative nuisance effects such as noise and vibration along the lines. Since most people and businesses will use the high-speed trains infrequently, there will be little benefit to locating near a line. Potential (but not certain) agglomeration benefits may be the most likely benefit of HSR in the United States. However, alternatives to HSR should be considered.

Moving towards sustainable intercity transport: a case study of high-speed rail in Australia

High-speed rail (HSR) is becoming commonplace throughout the world. Previous attempts to develop HSR in Australia have been unsuccessful. This article applies scenario-based planning to the introduction of HSR so as to achieve more sustainable intercity mobility along Australia’s eastern seaboard. The article identifies regime players and transition drivers to develop a framework depicting possible futures and determine the means by which the transition arena should be managed. It also makes the case for a more ‘purposive transition’, whereby an optimal pathway is defined and followed, in some instances. The futures developed in the research show what is likely to occur if other pathways are chosen, and suggest how the transition should be governed, from determining which stakeholders’ views should be given the most salience, to avoiding a compromised solution that benefits no one.

Constructing a mixed-logit model with market positioning to analyze the effects of new mode introduction

This study aims to investigate how the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) influences traveler choice behavior and the market structure in the western corridor of Taiwan. A new mixed-logit model with factor decomposition is constructed to analyze the market positioning of the existing modes and HSR; the data is collected using the stated preference method. The empirical results show that travel cost is the major factor in market positioning. After the introduction of HSR, travelers’ mode preference did not change, whereas locations across modes on the market-positioning map as well as some coefficients of the explanatory variables changed.