Is Resilient Transportation Infrastructure Low-Carbon? Evidence from High-Speed Railway Projects in China

He, Zheng; Wang, Genda; Chen, Huihua; Yan, Hongyan

doi:10.1155/2022/3138413

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…What's more, after comparing the impacts of different transportation types on carbon emissions, the study of Gan et al (2020) confirmed that contrasted with the traditional railway, the operation of HSR can also be seen as the underlying driving factor of urban carbon emissions. Meanwhile, a large amount of energy and resources used in HSR construction was also a crucial factor to increase carbon emissions in the short term (He et al 2022).…”

Section: Literature Review and Theoretical Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

The impacts of high-speed railway on environmental sustainability: quasi-experimental evidence from China

Shen,

Pan,

Feng

2023

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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With growing concerns over resource depletion and environmental degradation, the role of high-speed railways in fostering a transition towards sustainable energy sources has gained prominence. Against this background, we treat the opening of high-speed railways as a quasi-natural study, analyze data from Chinese industrial enterprises and 285 prefecture-level cities to investigate the impact of high-speed railways on environmental sustainability, specifically focusing on fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions. Our results unequivocally demonstrate that the introduction of high-speed railways has been instrumental in promoting eco-friendly development, as evidenced by a notable reduction in traditional resource consumption and carbon emissions along the railway routes. This inhibitory effect has strengthened over time and with increasing distance from the railway. Additionally, we identify significant spatial spillover and spatial conduction effects resulting from high-speed railway operations. Heterogeneity tests reveal that third-tier cities, non-megacities, and mature resource-based cities are particularly receptive to these sustainable impacts. Besides, Mechanism analysis suggests that accelerated elements flow, enhanced technological innovation, improved labor productivity, and upgrading of industrial structure serve as potential pathways leading to eco-sustainability. These findings highlight the environmentally friendly attributes of high-speed railways and underscore the pressing need for effective policy measures to facilitate a global transition towards renewable energy, both in China and worldwide.

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Section: Literature Review and Theoretical Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

The impacts of high-speed railway on environmental sustainability: quasi-experimental evidence from China

Shen,

Pan,

Feng

2023

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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“…Still, effects on the scale of export trade of service-sector firms, small and medium-sized enterprises, and productive services are more sensitive to the impact of the HSR [43]. Most scholars found that the HSR promotes firm innovation through cohort effects [44], facilitated factor mobility [45], human capital effects [46], competitive escape effects, spatial spillover effects, and economies of scale [47]. In addition, inter-city commuting frequency [48], the mobility of scientific and technological talents with master's and doctoral degrees [49], and the reverse concentration of senior labor [50] are the main paths through which the HSR acts on firms' innovation capacity and firms' patent quality.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Shen et al believe that the opening of HSRs not only accelerates the flow of information but also reduces the cost of investors' information searches, improving the capital market's efficiency [68]. Chen and Fang found that after the opening of a HSR, the speed of capital structure adjustment of companies in their cities significantly increased [46].…”

Section: Hsr Labor and High-quality Development Of Enterprisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does High-Speed Railway Promote High-Quality Development of Enterprises? Evidence from China’s Listed Companies

et al. 2022

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The high-quality development of enterprises is the micro-foundation of China’s economic growth model from “speed and scale” to “quality and efficiency,” in which China’s transportation infrastructure, especially the high-speed railways (HSRs), plays an indispensable role. We select the propensity score matching and difference in difference (PSM-DID) model as the identification strategy and empirically analyze the impact of the HSR on the high-quality development of enterprises based on empirical data of 1331 A-share listed companies in China. The results show that the HSR has a significant positive impact on the high-quality development of enterprises. This effect is more substantial for enterprises in the Pearl River Delta, the Triangle of Central China, and small and medium-sized cities. The HSR inhibited the high-quality development of enterprises in the mining, culture, sports, and entertainment industries in eastern and central China. The reason is the restriction of the ability to create social and environmental value and the influence of monopolistic competition. The HSR improves labor mobility, capital expansion, and knowledge spillovers, thereby promoting the high-quality development of enterprises. However, new infrastructure mainly improves the high-quality development of enterprises by promoting knowledge spillovers and technological innovation. This paper contributes to the modernization of China’s HSR network and provides essential insights for the HSR to achieve sustainable development goals.

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“…In recent years, in terms of the environment of construction projects, scholars at home and abroad start to focus on using the life cycle assessment (LCA) theory to assess the effect of materials on the environment and propose emission reduction measures from the perspective of materials [3,4]. Others focus on constructing carbon emission measurement models of elastic high-speed railway construction or LCA models from the perspective of railway engineering to conduct environmental assessment [5,6]. There are also studies adapting LCA to describe the potential environmental properties of various ecological composite materials, and improve their performance and technology in air transportation [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study on an Integrated LCA-LCC Model for Assessment of Highway Engineering Technical Schemes

et al. 2022

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This paper proposes an integrated life cycle assessment-life cycle cost (LCA-LCC) model of environmental and economic factors for highway engineering technical schemes to problems such as the limitations of single-dimensional assessment, their narrow scope, the difficulty in tracing sources, and the conflicts of various dimensions in existing integrated assessment methods. The latest documents issued by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Ministry of Transport of China used as an integrated assessment database. Air pollution, water pollution, solid waste pollution, noise pollution, energy consumption, pre-project cost, project construction cost, project operation cost, and post-project cost were used to construct the integrated assessment index system of environmental and economic factors. An improved entropy method was adopted in the LCA-LCC model to overcome the problems of ambiguous results of the previous entropy due to too few assessment schemes, the inoperability of the method when it encounters a negative value or zero value, and unbalanced multi-angle assessments. This model was applied to the assessment of two asphalt pavement maintenance schemes of Highway US280 in Alabama and two improvement schemes of high liquid limit soil subgrade of Highway G360 in Hainan. The results show that the LCA-LCC model overcomes the limitations and imbalances of a single LCA or LCC. The gravel improved scheme and the cold recycling scheme were identified through quantitative assessment as more sustainable. This paper can provide a reference for the comprehensive quantitative assessment of environmental and economic benefits of highway engineering technical schemes.

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Is Resilient Transportation Infrastructure Low-Carbon? Evidence from High-Speed Railway Projects in China

Cited by 6 publications

References 79 publications

The impacts of high-speed railway on environmental sustainability: quasi-experimental evidence from China

The impacts of high-speed railway on environmental sustainability: quasi-experimental evidence from China

Does High-Speed Railway Promote High-Quality Development of Enterprises? Evidence from China’s Listed Companies

Study on an Integrated LCA-LCC Model for Assessment of Highway Engineering Technical Schemes

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