TITLE:
Some Critical Issues in the Development of Chinese High-Speed Rail: Challenges and Coping Strategies
AUTHORS:
Min Chen, Hailong Tang, Kun Zhang
KEYWORDS:
Chinese High-Speed Rails, Development, Cost, Time, Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment, Strategies
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.4 No.2,
April
29,
2014
ABSTRACT:
In this
paper, several critical issues related to Chinese high-speed rails (CHSR) are
analyzed, investigated and discussed, including development background, reasons
for high ticket fare, some typical factors that influence the environmental
life-cycle assessment, time and cost comparison of typical door-to-door travel
routes between different transport modes and complementary strategies among
different transport modes. First, the results show that the expanding
high-speed rail network increased the pressure on the country's roads in the
2010 spring festival rush period due to the high ticket fare of CHSR. Second,
due to lower than expected ridership because of the high ticket price and
limited demand in less developed areas, some Chinese CHSR projects have become
economically unsustainable. Third, without sufficient ridership and service
life, the utilization of HSR was unable to show any advantages in the
environmental impact compared with the other transport modes. In addition, the
impact of shock from CHSR on Chinese domestic civil airlines is evident when
the travel distance is below 1050 km. The key objective of the investigation is
to enhance our understanding of the development and operation of Chinese
high-speed rail. One of the key contributions of the current paper is the
presented suggestions for complementary strategies between different transport
modes to make full use of Chinese transportation resources to promote low
carbon economy.