Does China's high-speed rail development lead to regional disparities? A network perspective

Area of Science:

• Transportation Geography
• Urban Studies
• Network Analysis

Background:

• Existing studies on High-Speed Rail (HSR) networks often use infrastructure data, neglecting service quality.
• Network centrality measures are common but typically do not quantify spatial disparities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the evolving spatial equity of China's High-Speed Rail (HSR) network from 2010 to 2015.
• To incorporate HSR service quality (travel time, frequency) into network centrality measures.
• To quantify spatial inequalities in HSR accessibility, connectivity, and transitivity.

Main Methods:

• Utilized High-Speed Rail (HSR) timetable data for origin-destination city pairs.
• Integrated scheduled travel time and daily frequency into three centrality measures.
• Employed Theil's T index to quantify spatial disparities in network centralities.

Main Results:

• Overall city accessibility became more equal with HSR network expansion.
• Disparities in connectivity and transitivity varied, with smaller cities outside major clusters falling further behind.
• Within megalopolises, the gap between core and non-core cities narrowed, though non-core cities increased reliance on core cities.

Conclusions:

• China's HSR development has led to more equitable accessibility but not uniform connectivity.
• Significant spatial inequalities persist, particularly disadvantaging smaller cities in HSR development.
• While megalopolises show reduced internal disparities, a growing dependency on core cities for broader access is observed.