This study analyzes the development of the urban rail transit industry in China from an overall and macroscopic perspective. Multiple factors were considered, such as the degree of urbanization, non-public vehicle ownership, road capacity, and modal share of public transport in international metropolises, as well as planning and construction of urban rail transit systems in China’s large and extra-large cities. Through extensive investigations and research, this paper presents a comprehensive, systematic, and in-depth analysis and explanation of the domestic social demands and environmental background for the development of urban rail transit in China. Based on national development policies and strategic plans, information on current cutting-edge technologies, the adaptability of various urban rail transit modes, industrial technologies, local finances as well as investment and financing models, this study analyzes the opportunities and challenges that the development of urban rail transit in China faces over the 2016–2020 period aligned with China’s 13th Five-Year Plan. This paper aims to provide a forecast and outlook on the period’s ten major trends. The predicted trends include expanded scale, differentiated development, networked structure, multimodal transit systems, industrial standardization, intelligent systems, self-developed technology, diversified funding, international markets, and strategic planning. This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the current situation, development prospects, and future trends of urban rail transit in China and proposes corresponding measures and strategies. The findings can serve as an important and valuable reference for the development of urban rail transit in China and other countries.
A new round of regional planning was conducted from 2014 to 2016 by the provincial government of Guangdong, providing an overview of the regional transportation development and history. Major problems in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) railway network are identified: the inconsistencies between railway planning and land use, lack of transit-oriented regional policy, issues regarding the competition and compatibility of different methods of transportation by rail. This paper incorporates the following solutions which include direct connection of major regional business centers, improve railway and land use synergy, integrate railway and underground subway system and also discusses the future of railway transportation in densely populated areas.
This paper analyzes the strategic transit network plan for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, using graph theory and other recently developed transit network measures. The different transit modes included in the strategic plan are emphasized by adding weights to distinguish metro lines from light rail lines (LRT). This approach can help compare the combined metro or LRT alternatives of the new Tel Aviv plan to the metro-only alternatives as well as measure the performance relative to the metro systems in other cities around the world. The analysis of the alternative plans in Tel Aviv showed that when metro and LRT lines were treated as homogeneous modes, in which all were considered as metro, the alternatives resembled medium developed metro systems, such as in Barcelona and Washington DC. In contrast, when the distinguished weights were included, the combined metro/LRT alternatives resembled less developed systems, such as in Lyon and Lisbon, and only the metro-only alterative score remained high. The results also showed that the alternatives have regional coverage, and the alternatives with more LRT lines score lower in coverage. The network structure analysis showed that the metro-oriented networks score higher in both directness and connectivity. When using the weighted measures, the existing plan (LRT-only) scores low on both directness and connectivity. The analysis of the results emphasizes the need for more metro lines in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. The results also suggest that the analysis of the complex mass transit networks based on graph theory should consider differences in line technology reflected in the line speed and coverage.
In this paper, spatial and statistical analysis methods were integrated to analyze the spatial accessibility, user population, and coverage of the Light Rail Transit of Addis Ababa. Stations were found to be the least accessible due to five types of land use and road network-related causes: government and social institutions with large area compounds, low road network density, open spaces devoid of road network, natural barriers such as water courses and large area public squares. The study explicitly revealed stations with overlaps in their service areas as well as stations having neighborhoods which are uncovered with the current service areas, i.e., 4.7 km2 and 19.9 km2 uncovered areas are found within walking distances of 1200–1500 m and 1500–2000 m, respectively; nonetheless, stations have fairly adequate coverage within 400 m and 800 m walking distance. Depending on the causes, stations were grouped into three categories. Service area-based determination of potential users is estimated to be 888,502, while the total number of the daily average actual users is around 67,624. Generally an increase in the accessible population is associated with an increase in the service area coverage. However, the population accessibility and service area coverage do not directly imply more number of actual users. Stations with large overlap of service area have reduced number of actual users due to the fact that the accessible population is divided between shared stations. Therefore, unnecessary large service area overlap is a wastage that does not contribute to more number of users. Future studies in the current study area might focus on considering the nexus between the accessibility and modal share as well as the long-term dynamics of the population of users.