Transportation Deployment Casebook/2024/Henan Railway Network

1 Introduction

The first railway in China was born in 1825, and laid by the UK. Since then, China's railway network began to form gradually. A railway network includes interconnected railway trunk lines, branch lines, contact lines, stations, and hubs. It is built to meet the needs of passenger and freight transportation under certain historical conditions within a certain spatial scope. The essential feature of this technology is to improve passenger accessibility to more places through efficient railway systems. Henan Province is one of the vital transportation hubs in China, so the railway network in Henan Province has been developing rapidly. Therefore, the biggest advantage of the Henan railway network is that it is located in the center of mainland China and has convenient transportation links. Its main market includes both passenger and freight transport, as passengers or goods from all over the country are often transited here. This study focuses on the life-cycle of the Henan railway network from 1979 to 2022, which shows a life-cycle including the phase of birthing, growth, and maturity.

2 History

2.1 Context

Before the year of 1978, there were many questions about the Chinese railway network. For example, it was difficult for people to buy a railway ticket. Most people never had the chance to travel far away from their hometown. At that time, people who had to travel for a long distance usually preferred coaches, because they were cheaper and more accessible. However, the coaches were too slow and uncomfortable. And this kind of vehicle easily went wrong during a long-distance trip. Thanks to the layout of the reform and opening-up policy, China started to attach more importance to the development of the railway network. A series of policies had been formulated to promote the improvement of the railway network in Henan Province.

2.2 Invention

Invention is always a long-term path. Generally, to complete a railway system, people should figure out the source of power, routes, and how to manage different railway lines. In terms of power, the rails were pulled by horses at first. Later, steam engines were used to improve the efficiency of railways. In the invention of the railway, various shapes of tracks were also essential. As for the second shift from the initial technology to the predominant technology, the technology of electric engines was invented, replacing the status of steam engines after the year 1871. Then in 1899, a high-speed railway was born in Prussia, which further promoted the development of railways.

3 Birthing Phase

3.1 Early Market Development

In 1978, the main market of Henan Railway was freight. Because Henan is located in the plains of central China, it is not only suitable for railway construction but also convenient for transporting goods to various parts of China. For example, the Longhai Railway is one of the most famous freight lines in Henan, running through the east, central, and western parts of China. By 1997, Henan witnessed the born of its first high-speed railway, which greatly improved the transportation function of Henan's railway network. Passenger transport has gradually become another mainstream market, bringing new vitality to the development of the Henan railway network. Meanwhile, the Freight market remains booming. The opening of the Zhengzhou-Europe International Railway has increased Henan's global reputation and opened up a broader market for its railway freight. Today, Henan railway network development ranks among the best in China.

3.2 The Role of Policy

After the reform and opening up, China Railway organized a series of construction campaigns, and the scale and quality of the road network continued to improve. In the 1980s, railway construction was accelerated by implementing the three ‘campaigns’ of ‘battle against Daqin in the north, attack Hengguang in the south, and capture East China in the middle’; in the 1990s, China implemented the ‘forced attack on Beijing-Kowloon and Lanxin, rapid attack on Baozhong and Houyue’ Then the government will focus on East China and Southwest China, complete the supporting facilities of Daqin, and concentrate its efforts on building several large-capacity trunk lines. Most of these plans passed through Henan Province. In the meantime, the government of Henan also carried out policies to renovate existing lines and increase major railway speed. Most of the various policies during this period were innovative and greatly promoted the development of the Henan railway network. However, in the early years of these policies, people invested too much energy in railways and other industries. They were somewhat unable to do so after 1989, and it became difficult to buy railway tickets. Therefore, the passenger volume in the period thereafter has declined.

4 Growth Phase

From 1979 to 1989, driven by the above policies, the passenger volume of the Henan railway network increased significantly. In 1979 there were only 4,513,000 passengers who travelled to Henan or transformed there, but by 1988 the number of passengers had reached 6,141,000.

Then for a few years, the curve remains flat. In 1997, the first high-speed railway landed in Henan Province and its railway network began a mode of rapid development. Entering the 21st century, China has developed rapidly in all aspects. The social economy and people's living standards continue to grow. Therefore, more and more people have time and money to travel, which further improves the utilization of the railway network.

5 Maturity Phase

From 2012 to 2019, the Henan railway network grew in a fast way, towards its maturity phase of the life-cycle. Unfortunately, when the COVID-19 epidemic broke out in 2020, the government introduced a strict lockdown policy. For the next 3 years, the development of the network was negative. This will have a huge impact on the transportation model that is about to enter its mature stage. However, as the lockdown policy was unwinding, the Henan railway network will be back to its growth soon.

On 20 June 2022, the Puyang-Zhengzhou section of the Jinan-Zhengzhou High-speed Railway, the Zhengzhou-Chongqing High-speed Railway, and the Zhengzhou Airport Station jointly opened for operation, marking the completion of the "Mi"-shaped high-speed rail network (which leads to eight directions) in Henan Province with Zhengzhou as the core. So far, the operating mileage of railways in Henan Province has reached 6,716 kilometers, of which the mileage of high-speed railways with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour has reached 1,924 kilometers, ranking first in the country.

6 Quantitative Analysis

This study collects the number of passengers on the Henan railway network from 1979 to 2022. All statistics are from the National Bureau of Statistics of China. To analyze the data, Use it to estimate a three-parameter logistic function as follows:

S(t)=S_max/(1+exp⁡[-b(t-t_i )])

Where:

S(t) is the status measure (passengers),

t is time (in years),

t_i is the inflection time (year in which 1/2S_max is achieved),

S_max is the saturation status level,

b is a coefficient to be estimated.

Then, use a single variable linear regression to simply estimate the coefficients c and b in a model of the form:

Y=bX+c

Where:

Y=ln⁡[Passengers/(S_max-Passengers)],

X=Year.

Table 1 shows all data and Chart 1 shows the s-curve of this mode. Both were at the end of this case study. After many calculations, the results are as follows:

S_max=35000

b=0.03489

r^2=0.61835

t_i=2041.69

The life-cycle of the Henan railway network has experienced the birthing phase and the growth phase as the high-speed railway is still under development, so the railway network will stay in its growth phase for years. According to the chart, the forecast is accurate. For the function of the Chinese transportation hub, the number of passengers on the Henan railway network has grown faster than forecast since 2003. However, from the year 2020, the data dropped significantly on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, thanks to the end of lockdown policies, the number of passengers is expected to rise.

Table and Chart

Table 1 Number of Passengers of Henan Railway System from 1979 to 2022

Year	Observed Passengers (Thousands)	Predicted Passengers (Thousands)
1979	4513	3532
1980	4860	3644
1981	4752	3759
1982	4680	3878
1983	5060	4000
1984	5534	4125
1985	3787	4254
1986	5731	4386
1987	5599	4522
1988	6141	4661
1989	5538	4804
1990	4476	4950
1991	4265	5100
1992	4311	5254
1993	4639	5412
1994	4602	5573
1995	4331	5739
1996	4107	5908
1997	4101	6081
1998	4214	6259
1999	4462	6440
2000	4838	6626
2001	5029	6815
2002	5206	7008
2003	4864	7206
2004	5695	7408
2005	5879	7614
2006	6465	7823
2007	6622	8037
2008	7476	8256
2009	7718	8478
2010	8338	8704
2011	8804	8934
2012	9213	9168
2013	10532	9406
2014	11647	9648
2015	12200	9894
2016	13825	10143
2017	15252	10396
2018	16383	10653
2019	17709	10913
2020	11415	11177
2021	13126	11444
2022	7512	11715