Impacts of rail transit access on land and housing values in China: a quantitative synthesis

ABSTRACT

Rail transit investment has been viewed as a prominent policy instrument for local and regional development. However, little is known about to what extent the theorised changes in land and housing values arising from rail transit access can be substantiated by evidence in a large developing country context. This paper presents a quantitative review of empirical studies that analysed the impacts of rail transit access on land and housing values in China. We review empirical analyses in 67 studies from 1997 to 2018 for which we encode quantitative results along with a range of theoretically combinations of spatially contextual characteristics, data and methodological-design characteristics. The results show that there are significant variations in the size estimates of effects of rail transit access across studies. Such variations are associated with rail project types, data and methodological designs. Our study provides the insights on what has already been known and what needs to be known on evaluating real estate consequences of rail transit improvements in developing countries.     

The association between transit access and auto ownership: evidence from Guangzhou,China

In many developing countries, massive investment in transit infrastructure is concurrent with the proliferation of automobiles. Planners expect that investment can slow the growth of auto ownership. However, few studies have examined the relationships between transit access and auto ownership in developing countries, whereas research in developed countries offers mixed findings and the outcomes may not be applicable to developing countries. This study employs a random effect ordered probit model on data collected from Guangzhou residents in 2011–2012. We find that transit access is negatively associated with auto ownership, after controlling for demographics and other built environment variables. This result suggests that, although income is the dominant driver for auto ownership in growing developing countries, transit investment is a promising strategy to slow the growth of auto ownership. This study also highlights the importance of addressing spatial dependency in clustered data.     

The impact of automated transit,pedestrian, and bicycling facilities on urban travel patterns

This article reports on an integrated modeling exercise, conducted on behalf of the US Federal Highway Administration, on the potential for frequent automated transit shuttles (‘community transit’), in conjunction with improvements to the walking and cycling environment, to overcome the last-mile problem of regional rail transit and thereby divert travelers away from car use. A set of interlocking investigations was undertaken, including development of urban visualizations, distribution of a home-based survey supporting a stated-preference model of mode choice, development of an agent-based model, and alignment of the mode-choice and agent-based models. The investigations were designed to produce best-case estimates of the impact of community transit and ancillary improvements in reducing car use. The models in combination suggested significant potential to divert drivers, especially in areas that were relatively transit-poor to begin with.     

The impact of high-speed rail investment on economic and environmental change in China: A dynamic CGE analysis

This study investigates the impact of high-speed rail investment on the economy and environment in China using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The analysis is implemented in a dynamic recursive framework capturing long-run capital accumulation and labor market equilibrium. A national level impact was simulated through direct impact drivers including land use conversion, output expansion, cost reduction, productivity increase, transport demand substitution and induced demand. The results suggest that rail investment in China over the past decade has been a positive stimulus to the economy, while the effect on CO₂ emissions generation has been large. Overall, the economic impacts of rail investment are achieved primarily through induced demand and output expansion, whereas the contribution from a reduction of rail transportation costs and rail productivity increases were modest. In addition, negligible negative impacts were found from land use for rail development and the substitution effect among other modes. Emissions reduction from substitution of rail for other modes was small and offset by output expansion due to lowered rail transport costs and induced demand.     

The impact of land-use mix on residents' travel energy consumption: New evidence from Beijing

Policies that encourage mixed land use are widely believed to make transport more energy efficient. However, few studies have directly examined the impacts of land-use heterogeneity on travel energy consumption at the individual level. Moreover, the definition and measures of land-use heterogeneity are debated. This paper aims to fill these gaps using the large city of Beijing, China, as a case study. Three types of land use are examined in terms of their effects on individual residents’ travel energy consumption. The results suggest that high land-use diversity and a good jobs-housing balance significantly reduces commuting travel. Interestingly, highly heterogeneous retail and housing areas may have high travel energy use, as residents are more likely to go shopping. There are obvious spatial variations in these effects. Residents of suburban ‘newtowns’, where the jobs-housing balance is particularly good, consume less travel energy. The results suggest that decreased use of conventional planning patterns, such as the socialist danwei system, and increasing urban sprawl, bring new challenges to achieving transport efficiency. Mixed land-use policies can be an effective solution to these challenges.