Impacts of urban rail transit accessibility on property prices in Shenzhen, China: Insights for value capture

Abstract

Urban rail transit (URT) plays a major role in mitigating numerous contemporary problems (e.g., traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions). A multitude of Chinese cities has released URT development plans. However, construction and operation of URT would cause heavy debt burdens for local government. Value capture schemes can be used to finance URT development and its first step is understanding the relationship between URT and property prices. Though numerous studies in the West have focused on this topic, limited studies have been conducted in urban China. Moreover, most studies are silent on 1) whether or not transfer stations provide larger premiums than non-transfer stations, and 2) whether or not URT accessibility benefits are more perceptible in peripheral areas than in central areas. In light of this, based on 722 residential complexes samples in Shenzhen, China, a set of hedonic pricing models is developed to examine the impacts of URT accessibility on property values. The findings are as followings: (1) URT accessibility offers positive externalities; (2) An inverted-U relationship exists between URT accessibility and property prices; (3) Transfer stations provide larger accessibility benefits than non-transfer stations; (4) the URT accessibility benefits are more notable in peripheral areas than in central areas. Though the first two findings are in line with most of the relevant studies, the last two findings have seldom been identified in existing studies, which represent the potential contributions of this work. Practical implications of our findings, such as diversified or location-specific value capture schemes are further discussed.