Rail Accessibility Research Articles

Least-Cost Path and Accessibility Analysis of a High Speed Railway Corridor: Victorville, CA to Las Vegas, NV

Geospatial technology is a useful tool when identifying land corridors for transportation networks. The primary transit corridor between Los Angeles, CA and Las Vegas, NV is Interstate-15, approximately a four-hour automobile trip without traffic. Virgin Trains USA LLC proposes an alternative means of travel by constructing a high-speed railway along Interstate-15 connecting Las Vegas and Victorville, CA. This study uses least-cost path analysis to propose an optimized alternative corridor for Virgin Trains’ proposed high-speed railway through a system facilitated road and rail accessibility analysis. Previous research using least-cost path and accessibility methodologies evaluated the results of proposed high-speed railway corridors and the system facilitated accessibility changes by visually inspecting deviations from a planned corridor using single or multiple cost criteria as inputs for a weighted cost surface. However, robust analyses of previous least-cost path studies’ corridors are lacking. This proof-in-concept study proposes a less costly corridor through least-cost path analysis and measures the social impact on the stakeholders of a high-speed railway transportation system through system facilitated accessibility. This study’s proposed alternative corridor is 31% shorter than Virgin Trains’ planned corridor and system facilitated accessibility to Las Vegas, NV is increased in 99.74% of Los Angeles County’s census tracts. These results support this study’s position that geospatial technology can support transportation planning in a comprehensive method that considers the transportation corridor and benefits its stakeholders.

The Impact of Rail Accessibility and Road Spatial Pattern on House Prices

The Impact of Rail Accessibility and Road Spatial Pattern on House Prices

High-Speed Rail Network Expansion and Its Impact on Regional Economic Sustainability in the Yangtze River Delta, China, 2009–2018

The rapid expansion of high-speed rail (HSR) has significantly improved spatial accessibility and connectivity efficiency, and affected the reallocation of spatial resources and regional economic sustainability. This study examined 40 prefecture-level (or above) cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, and explored the evolution process of the HSR service network and its impact on the sustainability of economic development. The research results show that: (1) From the perspective of intercity travel time and service connections from 2009 to 2018, the rapid development of HSR has increased the city’s rail accessibility by about 50%, leading to closer intercity connections. (2) There are obvious regional differences in the effect of HSR on urban functional levels and the intensity of inter-city connections. Compared with 2009, the central cities play a greater role as transportation hubs in 2018, creating a significant Matthew effect of accumulated advantage. (3) The distribution pattern of regional urban intensity index is uneven, and the difference in urban intensity index in 2018 is significantly greater than that in 2009. (4) The evolution of the HSR network has significantly affected regional economic development, especially the development of tertiary industry, and increased the polarization of economic development in the YRD. This research can provide a certain reference for regional sustainable development.

The Effects of Transportation Accessibility on Population, Employment, and Gross Regional Domestic Product: A Comparative Analysis of Road and Rail Accessibility in Urban and Rural Areas

본 연구는 교통접근성(도로와 철도)이 지역의 인구, 고용 및 지역내총생산에 미치는 영향을 도시와 농촌지역으로 구분하여 분석하였다. 분석결과 철도접근성은 도시와 농촌지역의 인구증가에 영향을 미치나 도로는 통계적으로 유의하지 않았다. 고용의 경우 도시지역에서는 철도접근성이 고용에 긍정적인 영향을 미치고 있으나 도로접근성은 고용에 부정적 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 반면에 농촌지역에서는 도로접근성이 고용증가에 정의 영향을 나타냈다. 따라서 농촌지역에서는 도로접근성이 철도접근성보다 고용에 더 중요하다고 할 수 있다. 도시와 농촌지역에서 모두 철도접근성은 1인당 지역내총생산에 정의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 즉, 철도접근성의 향상은 교통비용의 감소 및 고용시설의 집중, 생산품 및 물류비용의 감소를 가져와 생산성을 향상시킨다고 할 수 있다.

Travel satisfaction and rail accessibility

Rail stations located in residential environments provide significant amenities to the travel-related satisfaction of residents. Using an individual survey conducted in Beijing in 2013, this paper applies multilevel models to explore the association between travel satisfaction and rail accessibility, controlling for residential self-selection, socio-demographics, and neighborhood characteristics. We differentiate between station adjacent and non-adjacent residential locations to reveal non-linear association over space. We consider the effect of rail accessibility changes on travel satisfaction. The results suggest that rail accessibility improvements generate significant impacts on residents’ satisfaction with commuting convenience. The findings suggest the important role of the spatial placement of rail transit infrastructure on people’s subjective wellbeing with travel.

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.

High-speed rail accessibility and haze pollution in China: A spatial econometrics perspective

With deteriorating air quality in Chinese cities, high-speed rail (HSR) has attracted serious attention as an efficient transportation system to contain haze pollution across the country. This study introduces the concept of HSR accessibility and applies the generalized spatial two-stage least square method to examine the effect of HSR on haze pollution in China. A time-varying difference-in-difference strategy is then employed to recognize the causality from HSR to the haze pollution and eliminate endogeneity. Based on a panel dataset comprising 285 cities over 2010–2018, we find a negative effect of HSR accessibility on haze pollution. An increase of one standard deviation in HSR accessibility reduces PM2.5 concentration by 0.22%. However, the HSR pollution reduction effect varies significantly across cities. It is found that HSR can reduce haze pollution by improving the efficiency of resource allocation as well as promoting industrial structure change and technological innovation. This study proposes a new solution for pollution, i.e., improving urbanization quality through intercity transport efficiency enhancement.

Rail Location Neighbourhoods: Proximity Premiums and Residential Sorting in the Sydney Metropolitan Area

We examine the relationship between rail accessibility and the pattern of demographic characteristics at long-established Rail Transit Served Communities (RTSCs). The analytical methods involve the juxtaposition of property premium estimates and assessment of spatial effects on demographic composition. Despite finding considerable property premiums associated with access to rail transit across metropolitan Sydney (NSW, Australia), we report little evidence of prevailing gentrification or displacement. The demographic groups commonly linked to gentrification, including high-income and professionals, are not found to dominate areas of high rail accessibility to nearby established rail stations. Only those with advanced educational qualifications are shown to increase in concentration with closer access to rail transit.

Transportation accessibility and regional growth in the Greater Bay Area of China

This paper investigates a fundamental question related to the massive infrastructure development that has occurred in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) in South China: What is the impact of transportation accessibility on regional economic growth? This question is investigated using an endogenous growth model based on panel data that covers 11 cities in the GBA from 2000 to 2016. For the first time, the change in accessibility caused by both infrastructure development and the adjustment of custom policies were considered. In addition, impacts from the accessibility of various transportation modes (highway and rail) on different economic sectors were examined. The research findings confirm that the regional economy of the GBA is converged, which suggests that the regional economic disparity among the nine cities in the Guangdong province and the special administrative region of Hong Kong and Macau is reduced. In addition, the improvement of transportation accessibility was found to have a significant influence on regional economic growth, but the effects vary among different modes and economic sectors. In particular, the improved highway accessibility was found to have a positive effect on the regional growth of agriculture, construction, retail and hospitality. The effect of rail accessibility was found to be mixed, as a positive and significant effect was found on the sectors, such as agriculture, transportation, whereas the opposite effect was also confirmed in the manufacturing sector. Such a result suggests that the massive development of rail infrastructure system in GBA has facilitated economic restructuring to evolve from a manufacturing dominated system to a more balanced economic system. Overall, this study provides important implications for transportation planners and policymakers to improve their decision-making of future infrastructure investments pertaining to the improvement of transportation accessibility in GBA and beyond.

Which Regions Benefit from New Rail Accessibility? Germany in 2030

New transport infrastructure alters the spatial distribution of accessibility, which can influence a region’s development potential. The implementation of High-Speed Rail (HSR) during the last decades has often considerably improved rail accessibility of connected regions, but is also often found to increase relative discrepancies between regions. We analyse the effects of currently planned rail projects on regional accessibility in Germany, with a spatial and network structure differing from other countries, for the year 2030. We use a population potential and a degree centrality measure and find slight tendency towards greater balancing of accessibility across regions and greater poly-centralisation within the rail network, showing the importance of network integration and improvements beyond the HSR network. Two macro-regions of Germany profit most from the planned rail lines: the economically dynamic South and the catching-up East. We interpret this as the outcome of two simultaneous planning goals which include removing “bottlenecks” and supporting weaker regions. We propose that the official regional planning assessment currently used in the planning process of national rail infrastructure could be improved by applying a potential accessibility measure.

Regional impact of rail network accessibility on residential property price: Modelling spatial heterogeneous capitalisation effects in Hong Kong

Abstract With new rail lines, residents can enjoy higher accessibility and more activity opportunities. However, better access to public transport can potentially increase land prices in catchment areas. In this research, we aim to investigate whether this capitalisation effect goes beyond the conventional catchment area and how such an effect varies across different regions. In a departure from previous studies, we employed a gravity-based accessibility measure to capture the regional impact of rail lines using a cross-sectional analysis of 2001 and 2011 residential apartment data in Hong Kong and a difference-in-difference approach to estimate repeated sales transacted in both years. We used a three-level hierarchical estimation method that allowed the price effect to vary by submarket. The results indicated that the network accessibility of rail lines had a statistically significant capitalisation effect on property prices that varied across different submarkets. Although the three major new rail lines had a greater impact on the built environment in suburban areas, the elasticities in property price with regard to accessibility were still larger in urban areas in both 2001 and 2011. We also establish that the improvements in rail accessibility had a substantially greater effect on the changes in property price between 2001 and 2011 in several new town submarkets along the new lines. From a regional perspective, we conclude that the price effect of new transport infrastructure goes beyond the local catchment areas and call for urban policies that address housing affordability issues across different submarkets in the region and a re-examination of land value capture policies.

The analysis of the rail accessibility to the health resorts in the Dolnośląskie and Malopolskie voivodships

The article concerns railway access to spas of two voivodeships in the southern part of Poland. The author conducted surveys in spas to identify traits that in the eyes of the patients are developmental factors of the railway. The content of railway timetables in terms of travel time to spas and frequency of connections was also analyzed. The idea of an original typology of health resorts is being developed in terms of accessibility by rail. Four types of spas were distinguished: neighborly communication, poor reachability, unused opportunity and tourist expansion.

FREIGHT MODAL POLICIES TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

Freight transport policy analysts struggle to shift truck freight movements to rail to diminish transportation externalities including environmental costs and safety issues. Therefore, policy-makers need to be aware of the consequences of their decisions beforehand. This study is mainly focused on two policies targeting fuel price and access to rail transportation. A nation-wide freight mode choice model is developed for Iran, and shippers’ tendency to choose rail or truck freight transportation is analyzed by considering the shipping time and cost, commodity weight, commodity type, and rail accessibility. Total fuel consumption and air pollution costs are compared in various scenarios. Based on the results, environmental transportation costs are significantly reduced as a result of the modal shift from truck to rail freight transportation, if the government reallocates the gasoline subsidy to the construction of prioritized railroads.

Does urban rail increase land value in emerging cities? Value uplift from Bangalore Metro

This paper seeks to understand how urban rail can influence land value uplift, especially in emerging cities which are largely unstudied. It examines the Bangalore Metro and shows that the uplift from the metro rail was substantial in the ‘catchment area’ and ‘across the city’. The analysis was based on the panel data hedonic price model for around 160,000 apartments over the period 2012–16 and a cross-sectional data hedonic price model for 314,000 apartments in 2016. The panel data resulted in a stronger model and show significant land value increases, even beyond the traditional 500 m catchment. A ‘before’ and ‘after’ from the commencement of the metro rail operations shows a price uplift of 4.5% across the whole city and indicates a major agglomeration economic event resulting in substantial willingness to pay of USD 306 million from the metro rail accessibility. Emerging cities can expect metro rail to substantially improve their economies and other co-benefits as long as finance can be obtained by capturing this value.

Assessing the impacts of state-supported rail services on local population and employment: A California case study

The State of California has been financially supporting Amtrak intercity passenger rail services since 1976. This paper studies the impacts of this support on local population and employment at both county and city levels. We use datasets which include geographic, transportation, and socioeconomic characteristics of California counties and cities from 1950 to 2010. Propensity score, one-to-one matching models are employed to draw units from the control group, which are counties/cities that do not have a state-supported Amtrak station, to match with units from the treatment group, which are counties/cities that do. Using regression analysis, we find that state-support Amtrak stations have significant effect on local population in the long term, and the effect increases with time. However, the effect on civilian employment is almost non-existent. This suggests that state-supported Amtrak services can provide quality rail mobility and accessibility, which attract people to live in a rail-accessible region. However, the economic influence seems limited.

The impact of urban proximity, transport accessibility and policy on urban growth: A longitudinal analysis over five decades

Transport accessibility is assumed to be a main driver of urbanisation. Like many other metropolitan regions, the Randstad, the population and economic core of the Netherlands has experienced significant urbanisation, transport network expansion and spatial policies aimed to channel urban growth. This paper investigates the long-term relationships between the development of railway and motorway networks, urbanisation, and spatial policies, by using a panel dataset consisting of grid cells measured at six time points from 1960 to 2010. Generalised Estimating Equations analysis was applied to model the built-up area. Predictors include proximity to and accessibility by transport infrastructure, vicinity of urban areas, and spatial policies. Results indicate that road and rail accessibility alike, stably influenced urbanisation, but less than proximity to urban areas. Spatial policies played a significant role in channelling new urbanisation, while preserving the centrally located green and mainly rural area. Remarkably, the legacy of earlier policies is still significant despite shifts in predominant Dutch spatial policies. The findings are expected to be relevant for comparable poly-nuclear areas.

A Comparative Analysis of the Characteristics of High-Speed Railway Network in China’s Metropolitan Areas

<em>The role of high-speed rail network in the metropolitan areas is becoming more and more important, which has become one of the main ways of the city personnel contacts. This paper mainly uses the social network analysis method to revamp the six national metropolitan areas: metropolitan area of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, metropolitan area of Hachang, metropolitan area of Chengyu, metropolitan area of Yangtze River Delta, metropolitan area of Zhongyuan, metropolitan area of Beibu Gulf make a comparative analysis. The macroscopic and microscopic angles are used to calculate and compare the overall network characteristics, centrality, core-periphery structure and cohesion subgroups. It is mainly due to the fact that the high-speed rail network structure of the six major metropolitan areas needs to be improved. Metropolitan area of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and metropolitan area of Zhongyuan are relatively good the integrity and the connectivity. Metropolitan area of Yangtze River Delta is the highest utilization rate of resources. Metropolitan area of Hachang is the highest network density. Metropolitan area of Chengyu is outstanding between core and periphery. Metropolitan area of Beibu Gulf network of organizations is broken. Therefore, when layout of high-speed rail infrastructure, we should consider the high-speed rail network resource utilization, balance high-speed rail traffic within the metropolitan areas, thus enhancing the city’s high-speed rail accessibility and convenience.</em>

Sustainable station-level planning: An integrated transport and land use design model for transit-oriented development

Urban rail transit system in China has been rapidly constructed in response to the effects of urbanization, such as severe urban congestion and excessive air pollution. The sustainable land use planning (i.e. transit-oriented development, TOD) around the subway stations is important for the rail transit system because of its long-term influence on travel demand. However, there are limited studies that focus on the station level TOD planning. In this context, the aim of this study is to propose a multi-objective programming model that integrates transport and land use design for station-level TOD planning. In this study, one subway station in Beijing City is taken as the case, considering the unique features of urban development (e.g. high density and diversity), five objectives are taken to account in our model, including rail transit ridership, compactness, accessibility, conflict degree, and environmental effects. Meanwhile, an improved immune-genetic based algorithm is designed to obtain the optimal solutions under alternative land use schemes. The model results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to conventional genetic algorithms. This study is hoped to provide sustainable station-level planning for urban planning decision-makers.

Research on individual carbon dioxide emissions of commuting in peri-urban area of metropolitan cities —an empirical study in Shanghai

Abstract Based on an empirical study in Shanghai, this paper firstly analyses distribution of commuting co2 emissions among the populations, and finds that almost 80% of emissions are from top 20% respondents. To find which factors make those people producing a disproportionately large share of emissions, this paper further analyses the link between individual socio-economic characteristics, transit accessibility, urban built environment and commuting emissions. The results show that among socio-economic characteristics, male gender, income and car ownership are strongly related with emissions. Rail accessibility doesn’t have a significant impact on emissions, while the influence of urban density is weak but significant.

Intercity coach liberalisation. The cases of Germany and Italy

Abstract Intercity (or long-distance) coach transport has long remained a marginal mode in Western and Southern Europe. It connected mainly residual origin-destination relationships, to marginal areas without rail transport or, at best, as an ancillary mode to extend the range of rail accessibility. However, the recent experiences of German and Italian liberalisations can represent a turning point in the redefinition of the role of this industry. In particular, Germany showed that a competitive environment could foster the sector and make it a true alternative for car and rail, especially in the low cost demand segment. In Italy, instead, the liberalisation effects are appearing more slowly, also due to the fragmentation of the sector and to the relative maturity of the historical market, but more and more pervasively. While it is clear that a favourable legislative context and the limitedness level of entry barriers are necessary conditions for liberalisation, other elements appear to have a profound influence to explain the important differences between the two cases of Italy and Germany. The paper aims at discussing the role of two further aspects: i) the characteristics, and in particular the dimension and concentration, of the before-liberalisation market, and ii) the geography of the countries. When considering these elements, it becomes clearer why the processes ran at very different speeds north and south of the Alps and why the two markets still appear different.