Research On The Impact Of High Speed Railway On Passenger Social Welfare In China

After more than ten years of rapid development,China's high-speed railway has achieved network operations.From a macro perspective,the networked operation of high-speed rail has had a major impact on the flow of factors,urban space linkages and economic activities along the line,changing China's comprehensive transportation system and traffic pattern.From a micro level,the high-speed railway network has a far-reaching impact on the travel of residents in the covered area,which leads to shortened travel time and improved travel convenience.Through combing the domestic and foreign literatures,this paper finds that the related research mainly focuses on the allocation efficiency of high-speed railway,the competition of different transportation modes and the change of market share rate,which mainly adopts qualitative analysis and game theory modeling analysis methods.This leaves room for research on the impact of high-speed rail on passenger welfare.This paper constructs the mechanism of high-speed railway affecting passenger welfare,and analyzes the social welfare impact of high-speed railway on different passenger groups from the supply side and demand side,using multi-period discrete selection model and ordered logistic model.The paper also responds whether the voice on the society that believes that passengers are "Forced to take high-speed rail",which leads to a decline in the travel experience is reasonable or not,after that the paper proposes policy recommendations for rational division and orderly competition in different modes of transport.This paper studies the impact of high-speed railway on passenger social welfare from the perspective of theoretical research and empirical analysis.In terms of theoretical research,through the transport supply and demand analysis paradigm of transport economics theory,this paper analyzes the impact of high-speed rail entering the market on passenger welfare,that is,affecting the supply side structure and other modes of transportation on the one hand;affecting demand side from influencing heterogeneous travel preferences.In the supply and demand matching process,the increase in benefits comes from the matching of high-speed rail supply with effective demand,that is,matching passengers whose generalized reserved price is greater than the fare.On the one hand,the reduction in welfare comes from the matching between high-speed rail supply and non-effective demand.That is,the passengers prefer to travel in a certain mode which choose some strategy adjustment when facing the high-speed rail competition.After that it leads to the decline or suspension of the frequency of the trip.In the case of insufficient supply,passengers are forced to choose high-speed rail travel.The supply and demand mismatch can be quantified as the difference between the reserve price and the fare.Therefore,the mechanism of action established in this paper is that the high-speed rail will eventually form a passenger welfare surplus or passenger welfare loss by changing the characteristics of transportation supply and transportation demand.In the empirical research,this paper collects and collates data from both the supply side and the demand side,and conducts model analysis based on theoretical research and mechanism of action.By incorporating the traffic mode attribute and the weighted time value variable which affect the passenger travel utility into the multi-period discrete choice model,the model estimation result of the passenger travel choice utility after the high-speed rail enters the market based on the supply side data is obtained.The changes in passenger welfare are then compared and analyzed by setting up five step-by-step scenarios.Secondly,through the questionnaire survey,the passenger's personal characteristics and passenger travel characteristics are included in the multi-order logistic model,and the characteristics of passengers that may cause negative welfare effects based on demand side data are obtained.The results of the two methods confirm each other.It is believed that after the high-speed railway enters the market,the low time-value passengers' welfare loss,among them who prefers to travel on ordinary railways is obvious,mainly due to the sharp drop in the frequency of ordinary railways.The loss is about 1.35%of the total welfare change.The high time-worth passengers who prefer to travel in civil aviation have a low level of welfare loss.Overall,the impact of high-speed rail on passenger welfare is positive,and it is also reflected in the high acceptance of high-speed railway by respondents in the questionnaire,which indicates that the passenger welfare surplus is far greater than the passenger welfare loss.Other transportation modes such as adjusting the structure and expanding the market have further formed a certain social welfare surplus.Finally,the main conclusions of this paper are divided into the following four aspects.(1)The impact of high-speed railway on passenger welfare is basically derived from the optional set of travel from the supply side after entering the competitive market,affecting the passenger's heterogeneous preference from the demand side,and finally the supply and demand match forms the welfare surplus or loss.(2)The impact of high-speed railway on passenger social welfare is essentially positive,and the loss of welfare is far from enough to offset the positive effect of high-speed railway on passenger social welfare.(3)High-speed railways have different influences on passengers who have different time values who prefer different modes of travel.Passengers who have lower time value and prefer railway travel are vulnerable to welfare losses.(4)China's transportation network and passenger transportation selection are still improving and developing,and the total changed welfare volume is still increasing year by year.Finally,combined with the research conclusions,the paper has put forward relevant policy recommendations.