Title: Does China’s High-Speed Rail Development Leads to Regional Disparities? A Network Perspective

Report Abstract:

This research examines whether regions/cities in the HSR networks get more equally accessible and connected following the rapid expansion of HSR in China. Existing studies have either focused on the association between HSR development and regional economic disparities or hampered by a lack of data. Using data derived from train timetable, we obtain the actual travel time and schedule frequency of each origin-destination pair. The information enables us to apply complex network analysis combined with disparity measures to conduct further analysis. We find that HSR expansion may substantially reinforce the position of megacities. Between 2010 and 2015, although the interregional disparities between China's east, central, northeast and west regions show a trend towards convergence, the intraregional disparities captured by betweenness centrality of each region appear to experience a notable increase. We also observe that the inequalities in connectivity and transitivity between large cities and small cities show an upward trend. In addition, the five major megalopolises, on average, perform better than non-mega areas, and that the connections of cities within each mega-area become closer whereas those between mega-areas rely on several core cities in the region, especially Cheng-Yu, Middle-Yangtze and Pearl-River-Delta. Our findings provide insights into expected changes in regional developing opportunities as HSR continues to expand.

Speaker: Anming Zhang

Date/Time: 16:15 – 17:15PM, October 16, 2019

Location: Room 403, CEM Building, Jiangjun Rd. Campus

Speaker Biography:

Anming Zhang is a Full Professor in Operations and Logistics and holds Vancouver International Airport Authority Chair Professor in Air Transportation at Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia (UBC). He served as the Head of the Operations and Logistics Division, Sauder School of Business (2003-2005), and as the Director of UBC’s Centre for Transport Studies (2003-2004). He is President-elect of the World Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) and the President-elect of Transportation and Public Utilities Group (TPUG) of American Economic Association. Dr. Zhang is the recipient of the “Yokohama Special Prize for Outstanding Young Researcher” awarded at the 7th World Conference on Transportation Research (WCTR) in Sydney, Australia in 1995, and of the “WCTR-Society Prize”, awarded to the overall best paper of the 8th WCTR in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1998. In June 2014, he won the “Best Overall Paper Prize” at the annual ITEA (International Transport Economics Association) Conference on Transportation Economics, Toulouse School of Economics, France. Currently, he is also the Vice Present (Publications) of WCTR.

Dr. Zhang has published about 180 refereed journal papers and 30 book chapters in the areas of transportation, logistics, industrial organization, and Chinese economy. He has co-authored two books: Globalization and Strategic Alliances: The Case of the Airline Industry, 2000, Pergamon Press, Oxford; and Air Cargo in Mainland China and Hong Kong, 2004, Ashgate, London (Chinese editions published both in Hong Kong and Mainland China).