Understanding Accessibility Changes from the Development of a High-Speed Rail Network in the Yangtze River Delta, China: Speed Increases and Distance Deductions

The rapid development of the high-speed rail (HSR) network in China has compressed intercity rail travel times. However, what is contentious is whether the expansion of HSR network has created a landscape of uneven accessibility, i.e. producing winners and losers regarding cities’ changing ability to access to the others. This paper uses the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) – one of the most populous and developed mega-regions with the high dense HSR network in China – as a case study to examine accessibility restructuring and major geographical features of winners and losers through a longitudinal comparison before and after the development of the HSR network. Analytical results show that the introduction of the HSR service network has exacerbated the uneven pattern of network accessibility formed by the conventional rail (CR) network. Aside from increased train speeds, intercity travel makes time savings thanks to significant rail distance deductions in the change from CR to HSR services because HSR needs a straighter trajectory, which is usually ignored in the literature. ‘Winner’ cities are either privileged substantially by a much higher quality of HSR service or a much shorter network rail distance. HSR cities can also lose out due to a large increase in network rail distance and a low quality of HSR service. Except for a few CR cities which neighbor HSR stations, thus winning an above average change, most CR cities are disadvantaged as a result of HSR network development. This paper extends the speed-dominated understanding of accessibility change from the network perspective of HSR services.