The Social Benefits of High-Speed Rails in China

This chapter introduces the development of high-speed railways at home and abroad, especially the rapid development of high-speed railways in China. The impact dimension of high-speed railway generated social benefits such as general passengers, transportation structure, economy and society are explained. While we lay a solid foundation of the social benefits brought by transportation, we also summarize what to do next and research directions for researchers to go deeper into the study on social benefits generated by high-speed rail.

This chapter reviews the basic theories related to social benefits, including social benefits theory, high-speed rail social benefits theory, equality and efficiency theory, and social benefits measurement model, etc. In general, there is still room for further research on the theoretical scope, element identification, boundary definition and benefit quantification of social benefits of transportation.

The social benefits of high-speed rail involve stakeholders such as government, enterprises and passengers, and can also affect stakeholders such as shippers by releasing freight capacity on existing lines. The spatiotemporal economic theory proposed by Professor Rong Chaohe of Beijing Jiaotong University and the transport economic theories such as product-resource-network Economies, transportization and network formation as the important contents, have laid a solid theoretical foundation for the analysis of social benefits of high-speed rail.

This chapter examines domestic and international situations. High-speed rail has produced enormous societal advantages both domestically and internationally. From a domestic standpoint, China’s high-speed rail has rapidly developed since 2008, yielding several notable high-speed rail examples and delivering specific social advantages. This has increased industrialization and urbanization, created a large economic multiplier effect, and encouraged regional economic development. The impacts of high-speed rail on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the central Yangtze River cities, and the Chengdu-Chongqing cities are all typical cases. From an international perspective, the Shinkansen in Japan, TGV in France, AVE in Spain, ICE in Germany, and other related cases in regional economic and social development also have significant social benefits impacts.

This chapter presents a comprehensive modeling analysis of the social benefits associated with high-speed rail. The analysis encompasses various impact models, including the political, economic, technical, social, and traffic impacts. Broadly speaking, the modeling analysis of political, technical, and social impacts could be further refined. Concurrently, modeling analyses that are limited to econometric models have their own deficiencies and issues, which necessitate the expansion of policy network theory and other relevant applications.

When investigating the social benefits of high-speed rail, survey analysis is an essential instrument. Incorporates the supply characteristics of transportation products and passenger heterogeneity into a multi-period discrete choice model for empirical analysis. This chapter also eliminates the influence of high-speed rail on passengers’ social benefits by employing multi-period comparison and situation control techniques.

The implementation of the social benefits associated with high-speed rail is contingent upon the formulation and execution of appropriate policies. This Chapter delves into the social benefit impacts of various types of transportation policies, including those related to high-speed rail, investment and financing, planning, and land.

This chapter summarizes the whole book, summarizes the main research findings and research results, and provides an outlook on the limitations of the research results and the main directions of future research.