The Impacts Of High-speed Rail On Cities Along The Line

There are many High-Speed Rail (HSR) projects in China nowadays, including thealready operating ones like WuGuang HSR. As a kind of rapid transportation mode,HSR has a lot of impact on cities along the lines. HSR could influence the industrialpattern, urban morphology, the accessibility of cities, and transport equity among cities,etc.This research will study HSR’s impact on the accessibility and transportequity of cities along, basing on the case of WuGuang HSR line.The first part of the study is aiming at quantifying the impact of HSR onthe accessibilities of cities along. In order to get accurate results fromaccessibility evaluation process, seven cities in the transportation corridor ofWuGuang HSR are selected to be studied under certain criteria. Accessibilitiesof cities in the two scenarios, with HSR and without HSR, are compared usingthe classic Weighed Mean Travel Time (WMTT) and Generalize WeighedTravel Time (GWTT) as indicators. GWTT is an optimized from WMTT byconsidering the effect of both travel time and travel fare.After studied the evaluation results from the two indicators, HSR’s impacton city’s accessibility is concluded. It is found that cities are generally moreaccessible after HSR is built. However, HSR’s impacts on cities are different. Itis also found that the cost of HSR travel is the main obstruction for HSR toexert greater impact. This research also provided possible explanation for theevaluation results.Using the results of GWTT, this thesis finds that there is no significantdifference between mean accessibility of cities after HSR is built.To evaluate transport equity, Passenger Transport Matching GiniCoefficient (PTMGC) is introduced. To be passenger transport balance meansthat the passenger transportation resource one city matches its passengertransportation demand. The research finds that HSR has different impacts on transport equity inthe short term and in the long term. In the short term, HSR has little impact ontransport equity. In the long term, HSR could slightly improve transport equity.This research is innovative in the following aspects: quantifying thechange of accessibility change due to HSR, introducing Transport Balance GiniCoefficient as well as finding out HSR’s impact on transport equity.