{"id":125,"date":"2011-12-12T13:49:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T13:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/2011\/12\/12\/the-impact-of-high-speed-rail-on-accessibility-in-china\/"},"modified":"2011-12-12T13:49:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T13:49:00","slug":"the-impact-of-high-speed-rail-on-accessibility-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/2011\/12\/12\/the-impact-of-high-speed-rail-on-accessibility-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impact of High Speed Rail on Accessibility in China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
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The planned National High Speed Rail Network in the People’s Republic of China.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Jie Lin, who is a colleague of mine both at the CtSDC<\/a>\u00a0and the Department of Geography<\/a>\u00a0Ph.D. program, recently\u00a0examined\u00a0the impacts of the planned High Speed Rail Network in the People’s Republic of China. Specifically, Jie’s focus has been on the increase in accessibility that would be a result of implementing the planned high speed network. Before we dive into Jie’s results, however, \u00a0a little background.<\/p>\n

The total area of China is comparable to the size of the United States and the majority of that land is continuous. China has varying local physical geography that can isolate places- like the mountainous region of Tibet. Consequently, the successful implementation of a transportation network with higher travel speeds and greater accessibility has consequences in the realms of culture, the\u00a0economy,\u00a0and the overall social fabric of the country. Greater accessibility means the spatiotemporal<\/a>\u00a0size of the country decreases (ie. it takes a shorter amount of time to go from A to B, thus making A and B “closer”).<\/p>\n

But, how does one calculate accessibility?<\/i> Accessibility is defined by the ease of getting from place to place in a network. It is commonly calculated using a connectivity matrix like this: <\/p>\n

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This matrix is formed by counting how many nodes one must pass through in order to get to another node in the matrix. For example, the shortest way to go from A to E, is to pass through B, C, and E, so a 3 is added to Row A, Column E. The only difference in Jie’s study is that the calculations are not based on how many nodes one must pass through, but rather the time (in hours) it takes via the shortest route.\u00a0As you can see, this measure evaluates your ability to travel from each node to each and every other node in the network.<\/div>\n
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Jie’s study, which included 31 provincial capitals and administered municipalities, was based on the following assumptions:<\/div>\n
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