The Impact of High-Speed Railway Opening on Regional Economic Growth: The Case of the Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway Line

Abstract

With the advent of the “ear of high-speed railways”, the space–time distance between cities has drastically decreased. The opening of high-speed railways has not only increased the factor-flow speed across regions, but has also reduced the cost of factor movement. However, there is some controversy about whether high-speed railways can be used to promote regional economic growth. The Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway is the earliest section of the Beijing–Guangzhou high-speed railway, and it was the first high-speed railway in China with a real speed of 350 km per hour. The Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway opening spawned a three-hour economic circle in the south of China, injected new vitality into the economic and social development along the line, and had an important impact on accelerating regional economic interoperability and integration. Taking this into account, this paper took the Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway as the case study. Firstly, this paper used the theory of system dynamics to analyze the mechanism of the impact of high-speed railway opening on regional economic growth. Secondly, the accessibility model was used to analyze the impact of the high-speed railway opening on the accessibility of cities along the line, and a difference-in-differences model (DID) was used to explore the impact of the high-speed railway opening on regional economic growth. Finally, on the basis of the analysis of the previous mechanism, the mechanism of the impact of the high-speed railway on regional economic growth is discussed. The results of this study show the following: (1) Since the opening of the high-speed railway, the accessibility of cities along the line has grown by more than 60%. (2) The opening of the high-speed railway has promoted regional economic growth, mainly through the influence mechanism of “increasing the total cargo volume”. This study not only scientifically and quantitatively analyzed the impact of the opening of high-speed rail on regional economic growth, taking the Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway as an example for empirical analysis, but also further summarized the high-speed railway construction achievements in China and provides reference experience for planning the opening of high-speed railways.

Research Progress of the Impacts of Comprehensive Transportation Network on Territorial Spatial Development and Protection

“…It is generally agreed that the main mechanism of the economic impacts of the transportation network on urban and regional space is: "changes in transportation accessibility-spatial and temporal compression effects-urban and regional economic development" [52]. The assessment of regional economic effects in existing studies can be divided into two categories: one based on multiple linear regression, accessibility model, system dynamics theory, etc., to construct the correlation between infrastructure and regional economy and analyze its generating mechanism [53,54]. The second is based on scenario analysis to reveal the results of economic development under the scenario of infrastructure presence or absence, and the way of measuring the economic linkage between the cities concerned is mainly realized through the gravitational model, e.g., [55], WANG Jiao'e et al based on the GIS network analysis tool to study the economic intensity of the linkage between the cities in China under the three scenarios of no high-speed rail, the status quo of high-speed rail, and the planning of high-speed rail [56].…”

High-Speed Railway Opening, Industrial Symbiotic Agglomeration and Green Sustainable Development—Empirical Evidence from China

“…Can studying the economics of high-speed rail provide policy support for sustainable regional economic growth, as well as carbon reduction initiatives? Unfortunately, there are not many studies of this nature in the academic field, Rather, the emphasis is placed on the perspectives of green total factor productivity [6,7], regional economic growth [8,9], innovation performance [10][11][12] and carbon emissions [13,14]. In recent years, there has been a growing emphasis among scholars on the importance of transportation accessibility (connectivity) for regional economic development, surpassing the traditional focus on transportation infrastructure.…”

Study on the Influence of Friction and Wear Properties of High-Speed Rail Brake Materials under Humidity Environment and Temperature Conditions

“…Transportation infrastructure plays an irreplaceable basic role in the development of the national economy. Each change and upgrade is an important feature of rapid economic change [ 1 ]. In 2021, the national railway operating mileage reached 151,000 km, an increase of 53,000 km compared to the end of 2012.…”