Impact of high-speed railway construction on freight capacity on sections of existing railways- A case on the Yangtze River Delta

The construction of high-speed railway (HSR) can effectively release the freight capacity of existing railways. By analyzing the influencing factors of passengers’ travel choices, the Utility Function and Logit model are adopted to calculate the utility and passenger flow split rate, and get the passenger flow of the existing railways after the diversion of the newly-built HSR. The passenger flow allocation model is established based on User Equilibrium, and improved Frank-Wolfe (FW) algorithm is applied to solve it, and obtain the passenger capacity of the sections on existing railways. Based on the deduction coefficient method, the passenger capacity is deducted from total capacity to get the freight capacity of each section on existing railways after release. Finally, take the railway channel in the Yangtze River Delta as a case, the results show that after the construction of the HSR, the freight capacity of sections on existing railways in the Yangtze River Delta is released to varying degrees. The freight capacity of Hefei-Wuhu section will be released the most, which is 19.5 pairs of trains, while that of Shanghai-Jiaxing section is the least, which is only 3.5 pairs, following by Wenzhou-Jinhua and Hangzhou-Ningbo sections, which are 4 pairs. Therefore, the construction of HSR should be accompanied by focusing on sections with less released freight capacity to enhance the overall capacity of the regional railway network.