Study On The Impact Of High-speed Railway On Regional Economy In Central-southern Shanxi Province

High-speed railway and its strong technical and economic advantages bring huge economical benefits to the whole society.Shitai high-speed railway and Daxi high-speed railway in Shanxi Province form an important transport hub in North China.They are now becoming the main part of the transport networks of "eight horizontal high-speed railways and eight vertical high-speed railways" in China.The economy of Shanxi Province is an example of a typical resource-based economy.Since 2012,there is a turning point in the relationship of supply and demand in the coal industry,strongly influencing other industries,it has been subjected to a significant change.The result was a heavy blow,causing that economy of Shanxi Province started to suffer.In the same year,Shanxi was in the phase of full implementation of the economic reform.At present,Shanxi Province is in a crucial period of its economic restructuring.The construction and opening of high-speed railways will bring economical benefits to the areas along the line,which provides new opportunities for the development of Shanxi's overall economy.Therefore,under the background of sluggish economic development of Shanxi Province and the vigorous construction of the high-speed railway,this thesis aims to study the impact of the high-speed railway on a regional economy along the high-speed railway of Shanxi Province.Based on the relevant theories of regional economy,this thesis adapts the system dynamics method to study impact of the high-speed railway on the regional economy in central-southern Shanxi Province,which selects important indexes from the perspectives of economy,transportation and employment(basing on the literature review).Four cities,i.e.,Taiyuan,Jinzhong,Linfen,Yuncheng,that place along the high speed railways are analyzed.The research process is divided into three main steps.Firstly,the causal relationship of all variables between high-speed railway and economic system is analyzed and the causal relationship diagram of HSR-RE system is established by VENSIM PLE software.Secondly,this thesis establishes the HSR-RE model of central-southern Shanxi Province by analysis of the main feedback loop in the causality diagram and the mechanism of interaction between the variables.This model consists of economic subsystems,transport subsystems and employment subsystems,which include 10horizontal variables,40auxiliary variables,9 constants and 12 rate variable equations.Subsequently,the validity test of the established model including visual test,stability test,historic test and sensitivity test is to ensure that the model is reasonable and the simulation results are realistic.Finally,simulation of the model is carried out from 2006 to 2025 with the step length of 1 and as the result obtaining an impact of the high-speed railway on the regional economy in central-southern Shanxi.Then the proportion of the high-speed railway investment is increased or decreased by 10%for the simulation respectively.Obtained results of the simulation further prove the promotion effect of the high-speed railway on the economy in this area.The results show that:(1)Investment and construction of the high-speed railway will promote growth of the regional economy in central-southern Shanxi Province.The enhancement effects on the growth of secondary and tertiary industries are more obvious.(2)Promotion effects of the high-speed railway on various industries will also increase the demand for labor force in various industries,which will help to solve the employment problems.(3)The opening of the high-speed railways will greatly enhance the transport capacity of railways and promote the development of passenger and freight transport.The most obviously promotion effects of the high-speed railway occurs on the tertiary industry(including tourism etc.).It will be of great advantage to accelerate the adjustment of industrial structure,reduce the resources dependence of the economic development and promote the economic restructuring,which will guide the regional industrial structure to a new direction and vigorously develop the economy of Shanxi Province.