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The adoption of bus rapid transit (BRT) systems has gained worldwide popularity over the past several decades. China is no exception as it has long been aiming at promoting public transportation. Prior studies have provided extensive evidence that BRT has substantial effects on house prices with traditional econometric techniques, such as hedonic pricing models. However, few of those investigations have discussed the non-linear relationship between BRT and house prices. Using the Xiamen data, this study employs a machine learning technique, namely the gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT), to scrutinize the non-linear relationship between BRT and house prices. This study documents a positive association between accessibility to BRT stations and house prices and a negative association between proximity to the BRT corridor and house prices. Moreover, it suggests a non-linear relationship between BRT and house prices and indicates that GBDT has more substantial predictive power than hedonic pricing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Existing studies have yet reached consistent conclusions on accessibility benefits of buses. Most existing studies have been conducted in the context of the West, where bus patronage is generally low. In this study, we used a database of 22,586 secondhand residential properties in 358 residential estates in Xiamen, China to develop four non-spatial hedonic pricing models (one standard and three Box-Cox transformed) and two spatial econometric models to quantify the effects of bus accessibility on property prices and analyze how the introduction of spatial econometric models would influence estimates of such benefits. Our findings are as follows. (1) Access to bus stops is positively correlated with property prices. This outcome is in contrast with findings of mainstream research (or conventional wisdom). For every bus stop within 500 m, the price of a property is 0.5% higher, all else being equal. (2) Bus travel times to essential destinations significantly influence housing prices. (3) Spatial econometric models that account for spatial autocorrelation outperform traditional hedonic pricing models. A few robustness check analyses further guarantee the plausibility of this study. However, the price premiums offered by bus accessibility may be gradually decreased, even eventually discarded, because of declining attractiveness for bus travel and continuous transit service enhancement in the forthcoming years. Highlights • Add an empirical study on pricing bus accessibility in a bus-served city in China • Decompose bus accessibility into local (to-bus) and regional (by-bus) accessibility • Gain a deeper understanding of the benefits arising from local and regional bus accessibility • Offer insights for value capture schemes of financing bus investments [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• COVID-19 reduces the implicit price of metro accessibility. • The price elasticity of distance to the metro is −0.024 before COVID-19 but turns to −0.018 during the pandemic. • COVID-19 does not harm property prices in Chengdu. • This study points out an innovative and interesting research direction. The metro (or underground railways) has become a backbone in the transit systems of many cities. It has numerous externalities, such as ameliorating traffic congestion and enhancing nearby property prices. Previous studies extensively focused on the relationship between metro accessibility and property prices and obtained various interesting findings and enriched practical implications. However, this relationship in the era of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other epidemic shocks has not been investigated. Based on a unique property transaction dataset (including tens of thousands of transactions stretching from 2018 to 2020) in Chengdu, China, this study develops a battery of hedonic pricing models and difference-in-differences models to decipher the time-varying relationship between metro accessibility and residential property prices. The results show that the implicit price of metro accessibility modestly decreases in COVID-19, which can be explained by the declining role of the metro. In other words, the price gap between proximate and distant properties is narrowed, and the property price gradient is flattened. Specifically, the price elasticity of distance to the metro is − 0.024 before COVID-19, but it turns to − 0.018 during the pandemic. The relative price of properties within 500 m from metro stations to those farther away (500 m − 3 km) decreases by 15.4% during the pandemic. Additionally, COVID-19 does not jeopardize property prices in Chengdu. Furthermore, the decrease in metro access premiums may be short-lived and only persisted for several months or years. The plausibility and robustness of the core findings have been confirmed through alternative treatment groups, alternative model specifications, and placebo tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bus rapid transit (BRT) syste ms have mushroomed worldwide in the last few decades. An enriched understanding of BRT capitalization effects is essential. Although the BRT accessibility effect on housing prices has been extensively explored, the effect of proximity to the BRT corridor (which may be related to unattractive landscape and noise pollution) has been little scrutinized. More importantly, whether and how the two effects vary across price levels and space have yet to be sufficiently studied. To this end, we estimate the effect of BRT accessibility and proximity on housing prices by applying a battery of econometric methods (including hedonic pricing models, spatial regression models, quantile regression models, and a geographically weighted regression model) to 5185 observations in the housing market in Xiamen Island, China. The results of this study are: (1) BRT accessibility premiums and proximity penalties simultaneously exist in the housing market; (2) buyers of high-priced housing have a greater willingness to pay for avoiding the nuisances attributed to proximity to the BRT corridor; (3) the effect of BRT on housing prices is spatially heterogeneous; (4) the BRT accessibility effect is larger in suburban areas than in urban areas; and (5) housing prices are more predictable near the city centers than outside the area, which may be because a greater proportion of the price of a house near the city centers is derived from the location (rather than the building structure). Finally, policy implications (e.g., building acoustic barriers and planting vegetation along the BRT corridor and improving the transit service in suburban areas) are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• To-bus accessibility and by-bus accessibility significantly affect housing prices in the bus-dependent city. • Spatial heterogeneity exists in the price effects of bus accessibility. • Bus frequency exerts a larger price effect in the peripheral area than in the central. Accessibility to transit facilities is perceived to affect property prices. However, accessibility by transit has rarely elicited adequate scholarly attention in property price analyses. Additionally, previous studies on how transit accessibility affects property prices mainly focused on rail and bus rapid transit systems, while conventional bus transit, which is very popular in many contexts, has seldom been investigated. Moreover, whether there is spatial heterogeneity in the price (or capitalization) effects of conventional bus accessibility remains to be explored. To fill these gaps, this study aims to investigate the role of accessibility to and by bus in determining housing prices in a bus-dependent city where urban transit service is offered mainly by a bus system rather than other transit systems. Using a database of 4966 condominium units in Xiamen, China, this study develops a battery of spatial econometric models to estimate global and local relationships between to-bus and by-bus accessibility and housing prices. The findings are as below: (1) to-bus accessibility (measured by the number of nearby bus stops) is positively associated with nearby housing prices; (2) by-bus accessibility (measured by travel time to city centers by bus and bus frequency) significantly affects nearby housing prices; (3) spatial heterogeneity exists in the price effects of bus accessibility; and (4) bus frequency exerts a larger price effect in the peripheral area than in the central. Finally, practical and policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• URT has a positive effect on nearby housing prices. • Transfer stations have a larger effect on nearby property prices than regular stations. • The price effects of URT accessibility are stronger in the suburban area than in the urban. • Practical implications, such as differential, location-specific value capture schemes, are discussed. Urban rail transit (URT) is shown to mitigate numerous contemporary urban problems (e.g., traffic congestion and environmental degradation). To reap such gains, many Chinese cities have actively constructed URT and/or have been on their way of doing so. However, these URT projects often encumber local governments with debt. Value capture schemes can be used to finance URT development. To implement such schemes, we need to understand the relationship between URT and property prices. Despite numerous studies on this topic in other countries, limited empirical studies in urban China have been conducted. Moreover, most previous studies are silent on two issues that are important to value capture, namely: (1) whether transfer stations provide a larger housing price premiums than regular stations, and (2) whether the price effect of URT accessibility is more perceptible in the suburban area than that in the urban. This study contributes to our understanding of these issues by constructing a set of hedonic pricing models using price data from 722 residential complexes in the vicinity of a URT line in Shenzhen, China. Our empirical results show that (1) URT has a positive impact on nearby property prices; (2) the positive impact diminishes quickly as the distance to URT station increases; (3) transfer stations have a larger positive effect on nearby property prices than regular stations; and (4) the price effects of URT accessibility are stronger in the suburban area than in the urban. The first two findings are in line with most previous studies, but the last two findings are seldom reported in existing literature. Practical implications of our findings, such as differential, location-specific value capture schemes, are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies suggest that generally, access to public services has a positive impact on housing price. However, most of them are silent on whether the impact varies across different housing submarkets. In some contexts like China, compared with high-end counterparts, low-end housing purchasers, generally, have lower income and thus lower car availability (and transportation mobility). As such, they may prefer and attach a higher value to living in the proximity of basic public services (which are essential to life, such as transit). This is likely to be applicable to contexts where purchasing and/or using cars are not fully affordable for low-income households. We use 22,586 second-hand housing data in Xiamen (China) to assess the differential price impacts of access to basic public services in low and high-end submarkets. Results from two-sample two-tailed t -tests and F -tests and hedonic modeling confirm several findings: (1) there are systematic differences between access to basic public services in low- and high-end properties; (2) the two housing submarkets do not follow the same pricing mechanism; (3) access to transit, commercial centers, shopping centers, and sports and cultural centers has positive and significant price impacts in the low-end housing submarket. Yet, this is not the case in the high-end counterpart; (4) the effect of access to basic public services on housing price varies across the two submarkets: typically, access to basic public services has a larger positive price impact on low-end properties than on high-end ones; (5) interestingly, access to shopping centers has a larger price impact in the high-end housing submarket than in the low-end. The findings of this study basically support our hypothesis and also benefit policy prescription. As such, practical implications of the findings are discussed finally. Notably, our argument is that low-end properties buyers are more willing to pay for access to "basic" public services rather than that to premium/high-quality services. By contrast, based on scattered evidence from this study and existing literature, we suspect, though definitely cannot conclude, that high-end properties buyers have a predilection for premium/high-quality amenities, such as natural beauty and prestigious schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Effects of accessibility to BRT stations and proximity to the BRT corridor on property prices in a Chinese city are simultaneously evaluated. • Accessibility to BRT stations is positively related to property prices, while proximity to the BRT corridor is negatively associated with the prices. • BRT provides higher accessibility benefits in peripheral areas, compared with central areas. • Many policy implications, such as value capture and reducing the negative externality of BRT corridor, are discussed. Bus rapid transit (BRT) is popular worldwide because it provides high-quality transit services at low costs. China is not an exception in this regard, and it tops the world rankings in BRT network expansion rate. Many studies conducted in the West have shown that BRT accessibility has a positive impact on nearby property prices (accessibility effect). Comparatively, few studies have been conducted in urban China. Moreover, there are even fewer empirical studies on the undesirable factors associated with proximity to the BRT corridor, such as noise, air pollution, and unpleasant visual scenes (proximity effect). Based on 16,165 housing samples in Xiamen (China), we estimated a set of, non-spatial and spatial, hedonic pricing models to simultaneously investigate the accessibility and proximity effects of BRT and tested whether or not accessibility-based premiums and proximity-induced discounts coexist in the housing market. Empirical results of this study suggest that: (1) accessibility to BRT positively affects nearby property prices; (2) proximity to the BRT corridor negatively affects property prices; and (3) accessibility to BRT has a stronger positive impact on property prices in peripheral areas than in central areas. Though the first outcome has been well recognized, the other two have rarely been studied in existing literature, thereby representing the potential contributions of this study. Finally, we proposed policy implications from these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]