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With the increase in haze pollution in Chinese cities, answering the question of whether using a high-speed rail (HSR) as a green and efficient transportation system can alleviate haze pollution in China has become a research hotspot. This study empirically tests the impact of HSR network construction on haze pollution and its spatial spillover effects. (1) The construction of a HSR would have a mitigation effect on haze pollution in node cities and surrounding cities, and the more developed the HSR is, the more significant that this effect would be. (2) Haze pollution persists for a long time, the haze pollution from the previous year may have a positive promoting effect on the haze pollution in the following year. (3) The use of a HSR reduces haze pollution by replacing traditional road transportation and promoting industrial structure upgrading and technological innovation. (4) The inhibitory effect of HSR use on haze pollution varies due to regional differences and variation in city size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the difference-in-differences method combined with the propensity score matching, this study identifies the causal relationship between high-speed rail (HSR) and energy productivity in China. Furthermore, we investigate the mechanism through which HSR affects energy productivity, as well as the heterogeneity of the impact across quantiles and distances. The results show that HSR connection contributes to the improvement of energy productivity. This finding is consolidated after a potential endogeneity problem is addressed using the instrumental variable method and a variety of potential confounders are controlled through a series of robustness checks. On average, the marginal impact of HSR on energy productivity is approximately 9%. Moreover, HSR connection cannot be completely substituted by traditional railway and aviation in improving energy productivity. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that the positive energy productivity effect of HSR gradually decreases with an increasing distance to the nearest HSR station. In addition, HSR network accessibility has a significant positive effect on energy productivity, while technological innovation mediates the relationship between HSR development and energy productivity. We propose that to achieve the long-term improvement of energy productivity, policymakers should comprehensively consider both transit-oriented development and ecology-oriented development modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the influence of high-speed rail (HSR) on innovation has drawn sustained attention, few studies have investigated the effect on technology transfer (TT), and even fewer studies have examined the structural dependency between transportation and TT. Using the exponential random graph model for multilevel networks, this study attempts to provide an in-depth analysis of the impact from a two-level network perspective, with the associated network configuration providing insights into how HSR shapes intercity TT. Our findings suggest that HSR facilitates inter-city TT and promotes innovation convergence. Specifically, cities with a higher degree centrality are more active in exporting technology rather than absorbing it. In contrast, the betweenness and closeness centrality of cities have no significant effect on TT. The effect of HSR, which is apparent among cities with direct connections along HSR lines, decays significantly in cities with indirect connections. This work allows for the identification of the conducive HSR layout for promoting inter-regional TT. • Explore the impact of HSR on inter-city technology transfer using MERGM. • HSR induces the technology diffusion effect and promotes innovation convergence. • The direct connection effect of HSR far exceeds the indirect effect. • Degree centrality of cities in HSRN can significantly promote technology export. • Digital economy and fiscal expenditure for innovation contribute to technology absorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is an important ecological barrier in China. From new perspectives, this paper explores the mechanism of high-speed rail (HSR) for green economic growth (GEG) in the YREB. This paper constructs 108 city panel data at the prefecture level and above in the YREB from 2003 to 2020. Difference-in-differences (DID) is adopted to research the impact of high-speed rail on GEG in the YREB. (1) HSR has significantly improved the GEG of the YREB. The effect value is 4.88%. The parallel trend test suggests that DID is valid. A time-varying instrumental variable combining average altitude and historical railway network is constructed for the endogeneity test. (2) Propensity score matching (PSM) and DID (PSM-DID) were employed to test the sample selection bias. (3) A battery of robustness tests, including the placebo test, variable replacement, and policy interference exclusion, is carried out. The conclusions are still valid. (4) HSR can promote the GEG of the YREB by encouraging technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and increasing ecological efficiency. The contribution rate from the largest to the smallest is ecological efficiency, industrial upgrading, and technological innovation. (5) Heterogeneity analysis shows that HSR has played an important role in encouraging GEG in the eastern, peripheral cities, and the downstream cities of the YREB. Finally, this paper puts forward policy suggestions for promoting GEG in the YREB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government continues to contribute to tackling the global climate challenge and plans to continue lowering carbon emissions in the transportation infrastructure field. The comprehensive assessment of the impact of carbon emissions is mainly focused on high-speed railways (HSRs). This paper proposes a life-cycle cost considering carbon emissions (LCCCCE) model for HSR projects, which consists of a general life-cycle cost (GLCC) model and a quantified carbon emissions cost (CEC) model. The Beijing-Shanghai HSR is employed as a case study, in which the LCCCCE and sensitivity of carbon emission factors are analyzed using the proposed methodology. The results show that the LCCCCE of the Beijing-Shanghai HSR is 64.56 billion USD, and that its CEC is 1.04 billion USD, which contributes 1.61% to the LCCCCE. Thus, the LCCCCE analysis of HSRs or transportation infrastructure projects is an effective methodology to quantify the impacts of carbon emissions in China and around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A better reconciliation of haze pollution and economic growth has become the social consensus in China. The development of China's economy and air quality will be significantly impacted by its efforts to create high-speed rail (HSR). Based on panel data from 265 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2019, this paper investigates how the opening of HSR affects the spatial mismatch of haze pollution and economic growth by using the spatial mismatch index model, multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model, and intermediary effect model. We find that the spatial mismatch in China has an overall decreasing trend. And its spatial agglomeration is dominated by low levels. Further empirical analysis shows that HSR opening can effectively restrain the spatial mismatch. Even after some robustness tests and endogenous treatment, the conclusion is still valid. In addition, population density, FDI, and industrial structure are also explicit factors affecting the spatial mismatch. Second, there is significant heterogeneity in the impact. This is reflected in the fact that HSR opening can suppress the spatial mismatch of service-oriented cities and the eastern region, while other cities and regions have no noticeable effect. Third, spatial transfer of haze pollution (STHP) and balanced development of economic growth (BEG) are two important conduction paths for the opening of HSR to affect the spatial mismatch. Specifically, HSR opening can constrain the spatial mismatch by inhibiting STHP and BEG. Based on the above findings, recommendations related to promoting a better harmony between haze pollution and economic growth are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high-speed rail (HSR) is one of the most important, if not the most important, emerging transportation that could exert significant influences in many areas, including economic development, social development, financial development, environmental protection, etc. This paper focuses on examining the impacts of HSR on the development of the industrial structure. Since most of the studies in this area are related to central cities (provincial capitals and municipalities directly under the central government), to fill in the gap in the literature, in this paper, we investigate the impacts of HSR on non-central cities in China. To do so, we use the propensity score matching difference-in-difference (PSM-DID) method to investigate the siphoning, spillover, and moderating effects of the opening of the HSR on the development of the industrial structure in the cities along with or nearby the HSR. In addition, we conclude both the robustness tests and the heterogeneity analysis in our study. We find that the opening of HSR significantly promotes the rationalization of non-central cities' industrial structure, as well as improves the advancement of the industrial structure for non-central cities which are less than 100 km away from the central city. Moreover, the four moderating variables, the urban innovation index, the new urbanization construction level, the nearest distance from the central city, and the medical services insurance coverage rate, make the HSR has a positive impact on the rationalization level of industrial structure. Our findings are useful for both central and local governments and policymakers in accurately formulating policies related to the planning and construction of HSR, city planning, and planning the development of the industrial structure for each city nearby the HSR. • Investigate the impacts of HSR on industrial developments for non-central cities. • Propose five hypotheses in terms of the siphoning, spillover and moderating effects. • Construct econometric models and conduct empirical studies to prove the newly proposed hypotheses are correct. • Provide policy suggestions for both central and local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study examines the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) on the formation of consumer cities in China. We employ the market access (MA) approach and construct the least-cost path spanning tree network as an instrument to estimate the causal impact of HSR development on the socio-economic changes of counties from 2007 to 2016. Through a set of instrumental variable regressions, we find that districts with high MA growth experienced service sector agglomeration, manufacturing sector decentralization, and land price appreciation. These effects are relatively large for the urban districts of first- and second-tier Chinese cities. Through counterfactual analysis, we find that the absence of an HSR network decreases the growth of the number of service firms and service land price by 6.11% and 52.2%, respectively. These results suggest that HSR plays a key role in the rise of consumer cities by improving market access/integration, which transfers the economic structure from production to consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of China's commitment to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, as well as its strategy to build a strong transportation country, it is of foremost importance to study the carbon emission reduction effect of the opening of high-speed rail (HSR). This paper innovatively introduces the frequency of HSR stops as an indicator of HSR operation, and uses a time-varying difference-in-difference (DID) model, a mediating effect model and a spatial DID model to assess the direct and indirect impact, transmission mechanism, and spatial spillover effects of the opening and operation of HSR on carbon emission reduction based on a panel of 279 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2017. We found that the opening and operation of HSR significantly reduced urban carbon emissions. The direct transmission mechanism analysis shows that the opening of HSR can reduce carbon emissions by replacing highway passenger traffic. Indirect mechanism analysis shows that the opening of HSR can reduce carbon emissions through technological effect, structural effect and opening effect. The test of spatial spillover effect shows that the opening of HSR can promote carbon emission reduction not only in node cities, but also in neighboring cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether high-speed rail (HSR) can promote the coordination between the economy and environment is a critical issue that needs to be investigated. We used balanced panel data of 281 prefecture-level or above cities in China from 2005 to 2017 to consider the opening of HSR as a quasi-natural experiment. We integrated the difference-in-differences (DID) model, the spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model, and social network analysis (SNA) to empirically investigate the impact of HSR on urban environmental efficiency (UEE). The results showed that HSR significantly improved UEE by 4.6% annually during the study period, although the effect of HSR on UEE exhibited a time lag and varied dramatically in different cities. An analysis of the mechanism showed that the effect of technological innovation and the structural effect brought by the opening of HSR were the main contributors to the improved UEE. Further analysis showed that HSR service centrality also significantly improved UEE and HSR opening and HSR service centrality both had positive spatial spillover effects on the UEE of neighboring cities. Several policy implications are proposed accordingly to make full use of the advantages of HSR to improve UEE for China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the China Health and Nutrition Survey data to investigate the relationship between infrastructure construction and health inequality, particularly by exploring a quasi-natural experiment, namely, high-speed rail (HSR) projects. We find that HSR accessibility improves the health of local residents with a coefficient of 0.298, which means that HSR operation will lead to a 2.30% increase in health. HSR accessibility also increases individual income, per capita household income, and the probability of purchasing medical insurance, thereby increasing the health level of individuals. Further analysis shows that HSR reduces the health gap across gender and urban–rural areas. Unfortunately, HSR also increases the health gap among different income groups. • This paper evaluates the health effects of high-speed rail (HSR). • HSR accessibility improves the health of local residents. • HSR accessibility have increased the health gap among different income groups. • HSR layout should be complementary with medical resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-speed rail (HSR) has emerged as a significant mode for intercity transport in several countries, particularly China, setting an environment that may promote integration between air and HSR networks. To better measure the current level of integration of China's air-HSR intermodal network and identify implementation issues, this paper establishes a novel assessment framework that considers three primary areas: service capability, network connectivity and transfer potential. The framework is based on a comprehensive literature review of network measurement and assessment methodologies. Then, fractal theory is used to establish an assessment model that associates the fractal dimension to the level of intermodal integration, which can serve as an important complement to traditional weighting methods. The model and framework are applied to the 10 cities in China with the potential for air-HSR integration. The results show that international hub airports, together with their closest HSR station, do not necessarily perform at a higher integration level than regional hubs. The paper also proposes policy and practical recommendations to enhance air-HSR network integration levels from service supply, network coordination and transfer design perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the panel data of 280 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2019, this paper provides an empirical investigation of the mechanism and the impact of high-speed rails (HSRs) on urban economic resilience. The economic resilience evaluation has been constructed from three levels: risk resistance ability, organization and adjustment ability, as well as renewal and development ability. The difference-in-differences (DID) model and spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model are adopted to analyze the impact of the HSR service intensity on the urban economic resilience. Results imply that the HSR has significantly improved the urban economic resilience along the lines. Further analysis shows that HSR mainly increases the economic resilience through potential effect of human resources, dynamic effect of new economic sectors and vitality effect of innovation output. From a spatial spillover perspective, HSR not only improves the local economic resilience, but also improves that of neighboring cities. The spatial spillover effect of HSR conforms to the law of geographic distance attenuation with spillover coefficient changes. Moreover, the study documents a series of heterogeneity analysis concerning HSR effects across Chinese cities. Particularly, HSRs promote the development of talents, new economic sectors, as well as innovation output, and help resource-based cities unlock their over-reliance on resource industries, thereby improving their economic resilience. This paper introduces the concept of urban economic resilience into the analysis framework of HSR effect, and measures the geographical boundary and effective scope of the HSR's spillover effect. It provides a new lens for the sustainable development of transportation-regional social economy. • The determinants of urban economic resilience were analyzed from the HSR effect perspective. • This study explored the influence mechanism of HSR services on urban economic resilience. • The presence of HSR stations and the HSR service intensity both have important effects on urban economic resilience. • The HSR spillover effect is further estimated with the change of geographical distance and its effective influence scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The rapid expansion of China's high-speed rail (HSR) networks presents an opportunity to make urban economies more consumer-oriented. Many commercial and business districts have been planned in the areas surrounding stations. This study examines and critiques the impacts of HSR on commercial land markets in Jiangsu: a pioneering province for HSR development in China. After considering various locational and contextual factors, this study focuses specifically on how HSR stations and the frequency of train services have affected the dynamics of commercial land markets, using a spatial panel approach. The results show that the opening of HSR services has significantly impacted trade volumes, while the frequency of train services has significantly affected trade prices. Further analysis shows variation in the impacts of HSR stations and train service frequency on commercial land markets between Jiangsu's developed south and less-developed central and northern sub-regions. The findings suggest that the study of HSR impacts is sensitive to the selected spatial scale. Moreover, HSR development may not result in the creation of dynamic commercial economies for every city. Consequently, locally based policies are needed to take advantage of the transport-induced opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The large-scale transnational HSR construction evaluation problem in the B&R region is studied. • An index of comprehensive cooperation between China and other countries is proposed. • A method for calculating the weighted travel time of all road sections in the B&R region is proposed. • A method for predicting the comprehensive cooperation index of different countries is proposed. • Two indexes are proposed to depict the importance of port cities and road sections in the B&R region. Abstract This study deals with the large-scale transnational high-speed railway construction evaluation problem, which is a major issue in implementing the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative. We proposed a method for the selection of the most urgent need for transnational high-speed railway construction in the B&R region, which was tested on massive experimental data. The results show that 18 sections in the B&R region have priority conditions to build high-speed railways in current situations, which to a great extent coincide with those road sections covered by high-speed railway projects under construction or to be put into construction in the B&R region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have shown that high-speed rail (HSR) can reshape the spatial pattern of economic geography. However, there needs to be more logical argumentation and rigorous empirical design on the paths and mechanisms involved. This paper considers the impact of the border effect on HSR links and innovation clusters from the perspective of inter-regional collaborative innovation. It provides a logical and compact theoretical framework for HSR to reshape the pattern of the economic geography of innovation and then give a data-based empirical test. Using a benchmark sample of 285 cities in China from 2001 to 2020, the paper empirically examines the impact of HSR links on collaborative innovation and its mechanism in different border samples. The results show that HSR can break through various types of regional borders, shorten the tangible and intangible distances between regions, and increase cross-regional collaborative innovation through three primary mechanisms: market integration, matching human capital, and activating innovation activities. The paper also inspires how to improve collaborative innovation in regions with economic, cultural, policy, and administrative borders in addition to traditional geographical borders and verifies the negative superposition effect of regional borders to provide adequate references for policymakers. • The HSR can provide opportunities for innovative cooperation between cities. • The HSR between cities breaks through regional boundaries. • Study heterogeneous boundary effects based on the theory of the center-periphery. • Research on the three main micro mechanisms of "sharing, learning and matching". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the opening of high-speed rail (HSR) as a quasi-natural experiment, this study adopts a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) method for investigating the impact of HSR on green development with the panel dataset including 281 cities in China from 2006 to 2019. According to the empirical results, HSR can facilitate green development, which holds by a series of robustness tests. HSR tends to exert a greater effect on green development in urban agglomeration cities and non-resource-based cities. Further analysis reveals that HSR can improve green development by fostering service industries' agglomeration and urbanization. In addition, the spatial spillover effect of HSR on green development is also confirmed. Our researches offer recommendations to enhance the development of HSR network and to improve the policies related to green development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clarifying the relationship between high-speed rail (HSR) and a city's carbon emissions is the critical premise behind transportation decarbonization and China's carbon target. Based on HSR's operational data, total carbon emissions data, and socio-economic statistics, this study examines how HSR affects a city's carbon emissions and the varying effects among different categories of cities using the Spatial Difference-In-Difference model from both static and dynamic perspectives. HSR would decrease a city's carbon emissions through the scale effect under the influence of the complex external and internal environment and the resulting uncertainty, with both substitution and stimulation. We find that, at the static level, the operation of HSR in cities with HSR stations, can statistically reduce carbon emissions by 0.58% at the 1% level. It also reduces the carbon emissions of neighboring cities' to a greater extent through the spillover effect, which is characterized by being multi-directional and multi-processed. The dynamic effect of HSR is related to its three-stage phase development, including the start-up phase, the expansion phase, and the intensification phase, which is characterized by a significant time lag. The intensity of HSR's carbon reduction effect on cities tends to increase initially and then decrease, as the HSR network improves and gradually reaches saturation. The impact of HSR on a city's carbon emissions varies with city characteristics, including economic growth, industrial structure, and city population. These findings can theoretically and empirically support the carbon reduction effect of HSR, and provide important decision-making reference for HSR construction driven by China's carbon target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically examines the effects of high-speed rail (HSR) projects on individual happiness by matching city-level HSR data with individual-level happiness data. This study finds that the opening of an HSR project can promote individual happiness, with a coefficient of 0.076. This study constructs instrumental variables, namely, urban slope and area, and performs a series of robustness checks to address the potential omitted variable bias. Results show that in the study of happiness, the omitted variables of the HSR project are less biased. Further analysis reveals that provincial capitals, individuals with a rural hukou, men, the elderly, and healthy individuals are likely to benefit from the HSR project. In addition, the HSR project can improve the happiness of residents through the environment, commodity prices, and income. This study provides a new perspective on the tradeoff between the costs and benefits of HSR projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the implementation of the patient-mobility policy and the development of intercity transportation in China, interprovincial patient mobility has become an important phenomenon. However, little is known whether or to what extent intercity transportation reshapes the delivery of high-quality health care. This study mapped the accessibility of 41,259 township-level divisions to 1152 tertiary hospitals in multiple patient-mobility scenarios according to whether to seek interprovincial health care and whether to adopt intercity transportation. Our analysis included different transportation systems, such as conventional rail, high-speed rail (HSR), and air transport. Then the geographical detector model was used to contrast the spatial influences of different accessibility patterns on mortality. Our results show that HSR had the largest influence on the utilization of high-quality health care, while air transport was statistically insignificant. HSR can promote the equitable distribution of high-quality health care in that HSR decreases the Gini index and urban-rural disparity in accessibility by 9.52% and 13.25%, respectively. Further, a synergistic effect exists between the intercity transportation and the patient-mobility policy, which could reduce the Gini index and urban-rural disparity in accessibility by an additional 5.07% and 22.50%, respectively. Achieving high-quality universal health coverage relies on sustainable transportation policies and services. • The impact of intercity transportation on the delivery of high-quality health care. • Intercity transportation can promote health equity and narrow the urban-rural disparities. • High-speed rail has the most significant impact. • There is a synergistic effect between intercity transportation and the patient-mobility policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of a nation-wide high-speed rail (HSR) network has emerged as a hugely expensive and ambitious infrastructure project in China. As of December 2012, some 8,800 kilometers (km) of double-track HSR lines came into service in the country, accounting for 40% of the total HSR length in the world. The network is expected to expand to 34,000 km or longer in around two decades. As the first HSR system specially built and operated in an economically developing country, it helps integrate the sprawling economy and lift the quality of life of the increasing urban population. China's experiences in HSR are expected to be of value to other countries aiming to adopt bullet train systems, especially those at a similar level of industrialization and urbanization. This work specifically examines material stocks and flows associated with the HSR infrastructure construction in China. A major distinction from the construction of HSR tracks in Europe is that nearly 70% of the HSR tracks in China are laid upon bridges or inside tunnels, which are structures that demand great amounts of raw materials. The entire network, once completed by 2030, will cumulatively require 83 to 137 million tonnes (Mt) of steel and 560 to 920 Mt of cement. This is still a small share of China's use of material resources. Nonetheless, the massive application of the steel- and cement-intensive structures deserves consideration when assessing the environmental performance of HSR over its entire life cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cooperative energy-efficient trajectory planning for multiple high-speed train movements is considered in this paper. We model all the high-speed trains as the agents that can communicate with others and propose a local trajectory planning control model using the Model Predictive Control (MPC) theory. After that we design an online distributed cooperative optimization algorithm for multiple train trajectories planning, under which each train agent can regulate the trajectory planning procedure to save energy using redundancy trip time through tuning ACO’s heuristic information parameter. Compared to the existing literature, the vital distinctions of our work lies not only on the online cooperative trajectory planning but also on the distributed mechanism for multiple high-speed trains. Experimental studies are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods with the practical operational data of Wuhan-Guangzhou High-speed Railway in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Propose a novel two-city spatial equilibrium model with consideration of the high-speed rail (HSR) station location. • Investigate eight urban spatial structures of micropolis due to the diversity of station locations. • Obtain insights into how technical and socioeconomic parameters affect the model solution. • Conduct a case study of fifty city pairs in China. This paper aims to provide some new insights into the impacts of high-speed rail (HSR) on urban spatial structure. A two-city spatial equilibrium model is proposed to investigate the subtle effects of HSR station location on urban spatial structure, households' location choices of work and residence, and housing rents across the two cities (one metropolis with higher wages, another micropolis with lower wages). We systematically analyze and summarize eight spatial structures for micropolis, as a result of a great diversity of station locations. The conditions and analytic solutions of each structure are derived. It is shown that the HSR station of micropolis closer to metropolis may decrease the number of metropolis residents. The effects on intercity and intracity commuting depend on endogenous urban spatial structure. Numerical results from an example and a case study conducted for fifty city pairs in China, illustrate and verify our analyses and findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the firm level datasets from 2004 to 2014, this paper uses the difference in differences (DID) estimator to explore the effects of China's high-speed rail (HSR) on firms' environmental efficiency. We find that China's HSR lowered SO 2 intensity (SO 2 per unit output value) by approximately 7.9%. More importantly, firms reduce SO 2 intensity mainly through innovation, productivity improvement, and the agglomeration of firms. Our additional analyses show that these observed effects of HSR are mainly driven by firms in core cities, while the environmental efficiency of firms in the peripheral cities seems to be unaffected. Heterogeneous effects indicate that the HSR has a more significant effect on dirty firms, state-owned firms, foreign firms, and large firms. Our results suggest that HSR construction could have contributed to the China's environmental governance. • Using a difference-in-differences estimator, it is the first study to analyze the effect of China's high-speed rail (HSR) on firms' environmental efficiency. • The HSR can significantly improve the environmental efficiency of firms in the affected areas. The results indicate that China's HSR significantly reduced the SO 2 intensity of affected firms by an average of 7.9 percent. • The affected firms improve the environmental efficiency mainly through innovation, productivity improvement, and the agglomeration of firms. • Our additional analyses show that these observed effects of HSR are mainly driven by firms in core cities. Other heterogeneous effects of the HSR are also examined. • There are important implementations for the present, especially for environmental protection and green development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A field experiment was carried out at the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway to study the train-induced environment noise and noise mitigation effect of the sound barriers. The measured results show that the noise emitted by the train vehicles was increase with train speed, it was 82. 8∼ 91. 8 dB(A) when the train ran on the ground track, and 79. 3∼89. 6 dB (A) when the train ran on the bridge; the emitted noise of the train was decrease with the height of the bridge and the subgrade; the noise was mainly at low frequency (f=40∼80 Hz)and medium frequency (f=500∼8 000 Hz); The acoustic energy increasing with frequency on ground section attenuated more gently than on the bridges. Currently, the boundary noise alongside the ground track was 60∼ 65 dB(A), and on bridges 55∼60 dB(A); the predicted boundary noise alongside ground track by the year of 2018 will be much higher than present one, whose maximum value will be up to the code allowances. The noise reduction of sound barriers is 6∼8 dB(A) on ground track, and 6-7 dB(A) on bridges. The higher the barriers are, the more effective the noise reduction is: the noise reduction of 3. 15 rn-high-barrier is 2 dB(A) more than 2. 65 rn-high-barrier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the Maglev train is a very important achievement in passenger transportation for the 20th century. Based on the recent information this paper describes the development of different Maglev systems, the application of Maglev for passenger transportation, and the experience of promoting the Maglev transportation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The successful construction and operation of the Shanghai high speed maglev Transrapid line and the Nagoya low speed Tobu Kyuryo maglev HSST line indicate that the maglev has already entered the transportation development stage. The related progress for transportation development in China is shortly described, including its foundation, long distance, and intercity and urban application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the development of high speed magnetic levitation vehicles in China. Development strategy for high speed passenger transportation; Operational velocity and capacity of the vehicles; Design and construction of Shanghai magnetic levitation demonstration line.

Drawing on 185 cities in the northeastern region of China, this paper improves the radiation model by incorporating the accessibility index to characterize the asymmetric process of economic linkages before HSR in 2007 and after HSR in 2016. Then social network analysis is utilized to examine the impact of HSR on the spatial structure of economic networks, including nodal centrality and community structures. Finally, spatial econometric models are employed to explore the driving factors of nodal centrality in economic networks and some policy implications are proposed. The major findings of this paper are the following. First, HSR services can weaken the core-peripheral inequality of economic linkages and a corridor economy is evident in northeastern China. Second, HSR services have significantly improved the out-degree centrality of prefecture-level cities but have slightly decreased the in-degree centrality of Liaoning. Third, there was a slight decline of coherence in the economic network after the construction of HSR and the within-modular connections were strengthened by HSR. Four, the spatial error model (SEM) is more desirable for explaining the distribution of in-degree centrality. GDP, fixed asset investment, education, population, and fiscal expenditure are important contributors to the in-degree centrality in economic networks. These findings give significant insights into city system planning, integrated transport and land use development, formulating regional poles and the coordinated development across administrative boundaries in northeastern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]