Study on the Influence of High Speed Rail on Urban Accessibility in Henan Province

Abstract

Based on the traffic network in Henan province, the accessibility index is designed by using the population weighted average of inverse of time distance to evaluate the influence of the high-speed railway system on the city accessibilities, and the perfection degree of highway traffic system in the region. The results show that by the early 2016, the accessibility indexes generated by the highway traffic system have the characteristics of normal distribution with relatively obvious differences between cities and relatively unbalanced distribution pattern. The construction of high-speed railway has largely improved the city accessibility levels along the railway lines, makes overall provincial accessibility increasing more than 33.51 percent, and shortens the distance between the accessibility center and population distribution center. However, there is still long distance between them, as the southeast and southwest part in the province with very poor accessibility levels, which should be improved by further perfecting the highway traffic system in these areas in order to maintain a balanced regional economic development.