The distributional effects of high-speed rail investment in China: fast tracks to inequality?

Xutao Yang, Erik Verhoef, Mark Lijesen and Jianhong Wu

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2026, vol. 211, issue C

Abstract: High-speed rail (HSR) has become one of China’s most ambitious infrastructure projects, redefining accessibility and connectivity across vast regions. However, rigorous empirical investigations on the impact of HSR on the conventional rail (CR) operation and the following effects on CR passengers remain scarce. Therefore, we investigate how CR trips, often made by low-income groups, are impacted by the operation of HSR using a comprehensive rail operation dataset. Our regression discontinuity design (RDD) results reveal that the operation of HSR leads to a significant decrease in CR trains (CT) frequency with both immediate and sustained declines observed, and slows down the increase of travel speed over the years. Heterogeneous impacts are found in different travel station types, different types of CT, and HSR operation intensity. Our imputed effects indicate that aside from construction and operation cost by using the public investment, the distribution of benefits and costs on CR passengers is overall regressive, since the generalised cost changes appear to benefit high-income groups, but disadvantage low-income groups.

Keywords: High-speed rail; Conventional rail; Distributional effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2026.105088

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