Connectivity of Intercity Passenger Transportation in China: A Multi-Modal and Network Approach

This paper proposes a dynamic weighted model to measure the connectivity of intercity passenger transportation in China. We consider both quality and quantity of the connections of two transport modes: air and rail. Among the 23 major cities selected, Shanghai is revealed to have the highest connectivity level, leading in both air and rail connectivity. Hong Kong, Kunming, and Urumqi are the three cities that predominantly rely on air transportation whose contribution to the connectivity exceeds 80%. This research also suggests that the connections between international cities and China's domestic network are highly concentrated on a few cities, namely, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou, and that Seoul is the best connected international city in terms of its transport links with China. Shanghai-Nanjing has been found to be the best-connected city pair, primarily due to the significant contribution from high-speed rail (HSR) service. Our study shows that the contribution from train service is more than 80% for 19 of the 20 top-ranking domestic routes measured by connectivity. In addition, HSR has become a preferred and dominant option over air on a number of long-distance routes up to 1,300km. This finding has significant policy implications for transportation infrastructure planning and investment.