Impact of High-Speed Rail on Social Sustainability in China
A Bottom-up Research
by Xize Wu
A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
Department of Supply Chain Management
I.H. Asper School of Business
University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Copyright © 2020 by Xize Wu
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ABSTRACT
The state-owned high-speed rail (HSR) network, which connects major cities all over China, is playing an important part in lives of ordinary Chinese people in the last twelve years. Rapid development of the high-speed rail benefits the country on economic, environment and social aspects. The development also helps forming tightly knit city clusters and improve accessibility within these city clusters. In the last years, the Chinese government seeks to build a “four verticals, four horizontals” high- speed rail network, in order to reduce regional inequality and improve regional agglomeration. The impact of this network on people’s lives is an interesting topic to study.
Most existing studies use statistics to show the HSR has done its work and can be considered as sustainable from a general image. However, smaller narratives are also important when studying social impacts, and a grass-root study can provide some new ideas about the impact of HSR on social sustainability. Based on the sustainability theory and metrics of evaluation, we chose two of these city clusters and conducted an in depth, cross case studies. By conducting these studies, we aim to probe into everyday lives of the participants, study how are their lives changed (or not changed) by the construction of HSR, and what are their feelings toward these changes.
Keywords: High-Speed Rail; Social Sustainability; Grass-Root Researches
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Adolf K. Y. Ng., for supporting me financially and academically through the three years of my masters program. I am also thankful for him guiding me out of difficult situations, which I landed myself in because of sheer stupidity and ignorance. I could never finish the thesis without his help.
Dr. Changmin Jiang and Dr. Lukas Neville served on my thesis committee and provided me with advices throughout the project and helped me with refining my thesis. I am very grateful toward their wise suggestions and kind words.
The thesis includes two cases studies in different Chinese city clusters. I deeply appreciate the help of the fifty-two participants, whose name I cannot reveal due to confidentiality concerns, for their precious time and deep trust. I would also like to thank Miss Xie and Miss Zhang for the help in identifying and recruiting these participants.
Last but not least, I want to say thank you to my family and friends for their support. I am so lucky to have them in my life.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... iii LIST OF TABLES ...... vi LIST OF FIGURES ...... vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION...... 1 1.1 Development of high-speed rail in China ...... 1 1.2 Special Characteristic of Chinese HSR ...... 3 1.3 Question Development ...... 4 1.4 Proposition ...... 6 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 8 2.1 Elements that affects the impact of high-speed rail ...... 8 2.2 Impacts of High-Speed Rail on Social Sustainability ...... 9
2.2.1 Accessibility ...... 9 2.2.2 Social Influence ...... 11 2.2.3 Regional Equality ...... 12 2.2.4 Cooperation and competition with air transportation ...... 13 2.3 Social Sustainability ...... 14
2.3.1 Public Health Issues...... 16 2.4 Measurements of Social Sustainability ...... 16 2.5 Concept model and metrics ...... 17 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ...... 19 3.1 Two Groups of Participants ...... 20 3.2 Designing the Case Study ...... 21
3.2.1 The main part...... 21 3.2.2 Follow-up interview ...... 22 3.3 Conducting the interview ...... 23 3.4 Coding and analyzing the data ...... 26
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CHAPTER 4 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF REGULAR HIGH-SPEED RAIL PASSENGERS ...... 29 4.1 Age Group ...... 29 4.2 Gender ...... 30 4.3 Occupation ...... 30 4.4 Level of income ...... 33 4.5 Level of Education ...... 34 4.6 Place of Living ...... 35 4.7 General Description of High-Speed Rail Passengers ...... 35 CHAPTER 5. IMPLICATIONS OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL CONSTRUCTION ON REGULAR PASSENGERS' LIVES ...... 37 5.1 Introduction ...... 37 5.2 Common characteristics of the two cases ...... 37 5.2.1 Relevancy of construction of HSR and relocation of human resources varies according to travel motivation ...... 37 5.2.2 Strengthening family ties ...... 44 5.3 What set the two cases apart? ...... 48 CHAPTER 6 EVALUATION OF SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY...... 50 6.1 Basic needs and the quality of life ...... 50
6.1.1 Wealth ...... 50 6.1.2 Education ...... 51 6.1.3 Mental and physical health ...... 52 6.2 Satisfaction of basic needs and the quality of life ...... 54 6.3 Claim of social justice ...... 54 6.4 Social Coherence ...... 55 CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY ...... 57 7.1 Summary ...... 57 7.2 Discussion ...... 59 7.3 Contribution and limitation ...... 61 7.4 Policy Implications ...... 61 REFERENCES ...... 63 APPENDIX 1 ...... 67
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APPENDIX 2 ...... 69
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Tiers of Cities in China ...... 13 Table 3.1: Example of the follow-up questions ...... 26
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LIST OF FIGURES
Chapter 2 Figure 2.1 Concept Model of Active Transportation Behavior ...... 17 Figure 2.2 Social Sustainability Indicators and Measurements ...... 18
Chapter 4 Figure 4.1 Age Group ...... 27 Figure 4.2 Gender ...... 28 Figure 4.3 Occupation ...... 28 Figure 4.4 Level of Income ...... 31 Figure 4.5 Level of Education ...... 32 Figure 4.6 Place of Living ...... 33
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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Development of high-speed rail in China
In the last 11 years, the Chinese high-speed rail (HSR) system manages to cover the majority of the 9.5 million square meter land. The first high-speed rail was first introduced in August 2008. The 113.54 km railway connects two of the major cities,
Tianjin and Beijing, shortening the traveling time to 35 minutes. It only took 10 years for the state-owned rail companies to build 27,684 km of HSR, which composes 64% of the world’s 42,978 km of HSR tracks1.
The current Chinese HSR transportation system is a complicated system with four vertical lines and four horizontal lines. The four vertical lines connect the major cities along the eastern coast of China. The bigger cities connected are Beijing (capital city in China), Tianjin (the second largest city in northern China), Shanghai (the economic center of China), Guangzhou (an important business center and second-largest city in southern mainland China), Shenzhen (the first Special Economic Zone in China), Hong
Kong (the Asian financial and business center) and some provincial capital cities.
The four horizontal lines connect eastern and western China. The big cities connected are Shanghai, Chengdu (the political, economic, and cultural center in southwestern China), and some other provincial capital cities.
1 Union Internationale des Chemins de fer, 2018 1
The “four verticals, four horizontals” high-speed rail (The Economist, 2017)
On July 20th, 2016, Mid-and-Long Term Railway Network Plan (the MLTRN
Plan) (National Development and Reform Commission of the PRC, Ministry of
Transport of the PRC, and China Railway Cooperation, 2016) is issued. Thus the country’s HSR construction is pushed onto a new level.
The impact of this rapid development on social sustainability issues requires further studies, which the paper seeks to study. The necessity of this study is further discussed in section 1.2.
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1.2 Special Characteristic of Chinese HSR
The high-speed rail in China mainland is state-owned; creating economic value is not the priority of high-speed rail construction and operation. In other words, the high-speed rail system in China serves as a policy instrument rather than an economic instrument (Chi et al., 2011). So, the MLTRN Plan would be useful when discussing its impact, especially in the social department.
The MLTRN Plan decided that new railways should be constructed in the middle and western regions of China, building an “eight verticals, eight horizontals” high- speed rail system. These are the region with less GDP per person and less level of urbanization. Furthermore, until 2016, vertical lines of the existing railway mostly connect cities along the eastern coast of China. Though the high-speed rail did realize the goal of improving regional integration in the east, the existing lines in 2016 is a phenomenon of, rather than a solution to the social and economic inequality in eastern and western China. There are more HSR lines in the more developed eastern coastal region, and less in the less developed western, inland region. The new high-speed rail lines are supposed to serve the purpose of reducing this inequality.
The other goal of the plan includes improving work rate of transportation nodes to boost transporting efficiency; improving customer services and building restaurants near the transportation node; integrating the high-speed rail system into the existing railway system and bus transportation system; improve the local economy; building the railway system with minimum harm to the environment. (National Development
3 and Reform Commission of the PRC, Ministry of Transport of the PRC, and China
Railway Cooperation, 2016)
It is of great importance to connect high-speed rail stations to other transportation nodes. In large Chinese cities, many are living far from the high-speed rail station. They would need to take a slow train or to take a long-distance bus to go home.
To achieve the goals of the MLTRN Plan, Chinese governments have been actively involved in the high-speed rail project financially (with monetary support) and politically (with policy and special orders). The involvement of government helps to achieve the rapid development of HSR in mentioned at the start of chapter 1.1 (Ng et al., 2018). At the national level, such support has a strong positive effect on railway system construction.
1.3 Question Development
The rapid development of HSR (as discussed in the previous section), may have an impact on sustainability issues. As discussed in the second chapter, existing literature explains how this could happen.
On a macro level, the existing literature shows that HSR improves the flow of capital, goods, and human resources and benefits the country’s economic sustainability. With suitable policy, airport and road transportation may be connected
4 to the high-speed rail traffic nodes, therefore boosting the efficiency of the whole transportation system.
The construction of HSR has a strong effect on city clusters. Nevertheless, the effect of HSR on travel behavior and how does it affect relatively small cities in a city cluster is uncovered, therefore requires further study. To gain further understanding of the topic, this study aims to probe into the life of individuals that have been deeply affected by the construction of HSR, how do they perceive this change in transportation method, and how does the change in accessibility affects these individuals' approach to decisions.
The two questions are as follows,
1. How do people who frequently travel by HSR between more developed and less developed cities within one city cluster perceive the effect of HSR on their lives?
2. It is known that HSR would improve regional accessibility. How does this improvement of accessibility affect social sustainability?
However, the existing literature uses statistical analysis to explain agglomeration and regional inequality, the main disadvantages of construction of the high-speed rail.
Therefore, the impact of HSR on social sustainability might not be positive. The local people are considered to be one of the major stakeholders of high-speed rail (Lam et. al, 2013), and their opinion about the recently constructed rails’ effect has not yet
5 been studied on a grass-root level. Only statistics and surveys are not enough.
Bottom-up research, including multiple-case studies, may fill in this gap.
In this project, we are planning to focus on the people living in small cities connected to bigger cities by high-speed rail. The dimensions used to identify their opinion are economic situation, plans, and happiness levels. A multi-case study combined with questionnaires and interviews will be conducted.
The overall structure of the study takes the form of seven chapters. The first chapter introduces the current development situation of HSR in China. The second chapter focuses on the existing literature and the possibility of improvement. The third and fourth chapter introduces the methodology of the thesis and tries to present the general image of regular passengers of the HSR. The fifth and sixth chapter discusses the impact of HSR on regular passengers’ lives and tries to evaluate social sustainability. The seventh and last chapter discusses the contribution, limitation, and future implications for this study.
To further research these questions, two separate case studies have been conducted, with 25 participants in each case.
1.4 Proposition
Based on the existing literature, the two following statements are raised as propositions to the questions in section 1.4.
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1. In each city cluster, HSR sharply increases the tendency of people moving from less developed cities to more developed cities.
2. In each city cluster, HSR would increase regional disparity by encouraging relocating human resources from less developed cities to more developed cities.
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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter first presents the existing literature focusing on the impacts of HSR on varies economy and social factors, and elements that can affect these impacts. The chapter later introduces the concept of social sustainability, and the need of ploughing deeper into the discussion about whether the construction of HSR is social sustainable.
The chapter raises two questions regarding this topic, and provides suitable propositions based on the existing literatures.
2.1 Elements that affects the impact of high-speed rail
The first influential element is travelling time and cost. Chinese high-speed rail users are both cost sensitive and time sensitive. The willingness of taking high-speed rail decrease when cost and travelling time increase, thus the impact of high-speed rail weakens. Such sensitivity varies with the level of income. Rich people are willing to pay more, while poor people are not so willing. Time sensitive means they are sensitive to the time travelling to the high-speed rail station, the service frequency, and the time travelling between these stations. (Wang et. al, 2013)
Such phenomenon exists outside China as well. In Netherland, the value of time of travelers also acts as a dominant factor. (Willigers et. al, 2013) And in European countries, high-speed rail is generally patronized by higher income groups (Tomaney et. al, 2013).
Travelling purpose also affect the tendency of travelling by HSR. According to a survey (Wang et. al, 2013), the intention of Chinese people travelling via high-speed
8 rail are as follows: The top four categories are “Visiting friends/relatives” (31%),
“business trip” (27%), “tourism/shopping” (14%), and “going home” (10%).
As for Europe, the accessibility effect of the future highspeed train connection is larger for business travel than for commuting. The major population in Europe have cars, and they would rather drive instead of taking the high-speed rail. This is resulted both by a habit of driving and by the relatively high-ticket price (Willigers et. al, 2013).
Travel tendency also varies regarding their employment status, the top two
largest single group is the “managers and entrepreneurs” on a “business trip” (486),
followed by “technicians” on a “business trip” (435), which represent 9% and 8% of
the total, respectively. (Wang et. al, 2013)
Study about major European cities suggested that the presence of attractions for the travelers, the quality of promotion of the destination itself, the presence of events influence the choice of a traveler. It also shows that the HSR system has affected the choice of cities differently (Delaplace et. al, 2014). The smaller cities in relatively undeveloped area is not covered.
2.2 Impacts of High-Speed Rail on Social Sustainability
2.2.1 Accessibility
In general, the construction of high-speed rail has largely improved the accessibility of China. The speed of high-speed rail averages about 300 km per hour,
9 connecting the capital city, all of the provincial capital cities and other major cities in the country. By measuring average path length and clustering coefficient of the city network from 2003 to 2014, Jiao et.al (2017) shows that the accessibility of Chinese cities has been greatly improved. The average path length decreased 9.7% in the ten years, and it took 0.2 train less to connect all city pairs on average. The high-speed rail promotes the formation of small city clusters (Wang et al., 2011), thus promotes regional integration, serving the purpose when it is designed.
The cities of these clusters are located on the eastern coast of China. They have a relatively close physical distance, and a large population. So when high-speed rail connects them together, regional integration happens and this helps to further integrate the cities in each city clusters (Cao et al, 2013).
High-speed rail is efficient when used to solve regional transportation problems between cities between 400 to 600 kilometers by improving regional accessibility, and is used as a replacement of road transportation and airplane (Vickerman, 2015). City clusters are “groups of large, nearly contiguous cities made up with many adjoining satellite cities and towns” (Shao et. al, 2006).
The city cluster phenomenon is obvious when studying benefits of HSR on regional development. City cluster phenomenon means, in each cluster, cities with dense population and high GDP level obtain prominent benefits (Cao et. al, 2013;
Vickerman, 2015). However, the impact of HSR on the intermediate cities in Europe is considered to be minimal because of “a failure to see greatly improved direct access to
10 major cities other than within their own countries and a lack of new cross-border inter- regional services” (Vickerman, 2015).
2.2.2 Social Influence
In China, high-speed rail may start a new urbanization process, and long-distance high-speed rail could help to construct an integrated functional region. (Zhu et. al 2016).
The decision-making process of building the high-speed rail also needs to be noticed. The power-centralized Chinese government planned the route without discussing it with the majority people, there hadn’t been any voting procedure open to the public either. In fact, most Chinese people know this high-speed rail plan after the final decision was made (Lawrence et. al, 2013). Some argue that this harms the rights of the Chinese people, while others say the strong government is the reason of the rapid development of the Chinese HSR system. Albalate et. al (2012) used French examples to show how voting extended the discussion about French high-speed rail construction to an endless debate, asking the government to learn some lesson.
Arguably, in the individual level, another kind of influence exists. The rapid development of technology speeds up modern life even more. The high-speed rail is a technological method that makes travelling faster and less costly in many places. Rosa
(2003) suggest that this is a “crucial feature of modern society’s relation to nature”, and has some relationship with the acceleration of culture changes and social changes (e.g. change of role or change in a social group)
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2.2.3 Regional Equality
High-speed rail is likely to deepen regional inequality in both China and UK
(Tomaney et. al; 2013, Zhu et. al, 2016). High-speed rail increases the agglomeration of economic activity in major cities, so these cities are able to attract firms and workers.
The agglomeration is “the result of scale economies in intermediate outputs, labor market pooling, and knowledge spillovers” (Tomaney et.al, 2013). Therefore, cities with high-speed rail access and cities in the prosperous region benefitted more from the high-speed rail-induced accessibility improvement compared with non-high-speed rail cities and cities in the less-developed area. This is the so called “Matthew Effect”. The bigger cities/ clusters of cities become bigger, and the smaller cities become smaller.
Gradually, they become empty and lifeless.
Statistics issued by Chinese National Bureau of Statistics can be used to prove the point. The government of China sorts its cities into four categories according to political status, population and income level. The first tier includes three major cities in China:
Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The second tier is made up of provincial capitals and regional economical centers. The third tier is made up of smaller cities and counties.
Level of economic, education, infrastructure and health services differ greatly among these five tiers.
Tiers of Cities Definition
1st tier Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen
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2nd tier Provincial capital and sub-provincial cities; Capital of Autonomous
Region
3rd tier Other 35 cities in the Chinese Statistical Investigation Plan of
Residential Sales Price (2011)
4th tier Cities and towns unmentioned by the National Bureau of Statistics
Table 2.1: Tiers of Cities in China2
Estimated agglomeration effects of high-speed rail on various second-tier and third- tier cities are substantial. Because of existing effects, the desicion making procedure of
HSR construction goes beyond economic factor, and is actually “the combination of political and strategic factors”(Jiang et al., 2020).
However, the type of industry that are attracted towards the higher tier cities and the kind of human resources attracted is unknown.
2.2.4 Cooperation and competition with air transportation
The high-speed rail system in China covers 80% percent of the major Chinese cities and many smaller cities in between. The increasing speed of high-speed rail poses a threat to the air transportation. It is true that competition between airports and airline companies will be fierce. Yet the relationship between high-speed rail and airlines do not have to be purely competitive. Zhang et. al (2018) gave their reasons about this topic.
2 National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2018 13
According to Zhang (2018), High-speed rail can redistribute traveler flow of airports. Those who have good connectivity with air traffic may gain traffic while those who have not are in risk of shutting down. This is dangerous because the distributional inequality of air transportation will be strengthened. To achieve these goals, a strong and capable government is needed.
There is little support for habit breaking as a causally mediating mechanism.
According to Bamberg (2006), self-reported private transportation habit significantly decreased after introducing public transportation to the participants. But neither before nor after the move did car use habit have the strong, direct, negative effect on public transportation.
2.3 Social Sustainability
The MLTRN Plan (National Development and Reform Commission of the PRC,
Ministry of Transport of the PRC, and China Railway Cooperation, 2016) stated that one of the basic principles of HSR construction is to develop Chinese railway in a
“creative and sustainable” way. To find out whether the HSR has ever met this principle, the researcher must first look into the definition of sustainable development.
The definition of sustainability, as Brundtland Commission proposed in 1987, is
“development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It is an integration of three dimensions: environmental, economic and social considerations (Pope et. al, 2004). Social
14 sustainability is one of the three dimensions that integrate into this model of sustainability. It is a quality of societies that “reproductive capabilities are preserved over long period of time and the normative claims of social justice, human dignity and participation are fulfilled” (Littig & Griessler, 2005).
There are two underlying concerns regarding to the existing studies. First, the consistency of travelling choices are often observed, yet travel motivations does not have a strong influence on travel behavior, especially when a conflict occurs between these two aspects (Gardner, 2009). Thus, it’s reasonable to question the current experiment methodology when studying travel behavior, for correlational data does not usually lead to correlation behavior.
Second, as discussed in the previous section, a large part of the impact of HSR construction on social sustainability is still not covered. Regional equality, the decision- making process and the participation of individuals are already discussed, but there are still parts uncovered worthy of more in-depth studies.
These studies of human behavior include observing, analyzing and constructing social science model. New studies are conducted to test and verify these theory and statements (Clegg, 1993). However, the paradigm when given in the narrative way, could give shape to the social ideas as “identifiable entities in the discourse of the citizenry, to give public knowledge a form of being” (Fisher, 1985). When implemented into the transportation management gives a new insight, and justifies the study of probing into life of those that has been deeply affected by the construction of HSR.
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2.3.1 Public Health Issues
COVID-19 is a new coronavirus first discovered in Wuhan, China, which cause
Before China quarantined Wuhan on January 23rd, 2020, passengers traveled from
Wuhan to 369 other cities in China (Du et al., 2020). It caused a global epidemic and has become a serious public health issue. Transportation is known to contribute greatly to the spread of several epidemic, including SARS, H1N1 and MERS (Zhang et al.,
2020). To slow down spread of the COVID-19 virus, different measures including cut off the HSR totally and quarantining the entire city and reducing frequency of HSR has been taken (Chang, 2020). The quarantine has reduced human mobility, but statistics analysis differs significantly on how the quarantine affects the spread of COVID-19.
The result varies from only delaying the spread of the virus for 3-5 days and does not have an impact on the number of infected people (Chinazzi et al., 2020) and successfully detaining the spread of the virus (Du et al., 2020).
Large transportation nodes including Beijing, Tianjin and Chengdu are more at risk because of higher frequency of air transportation and HSR (Zhang et al., 2020).
Reaction of regular passengers to the measures implemented to delay the spread of
COVID-19 is an aspect uncovered.
2.4 Measurements of Social Sustainability
Social sustainability cannot be measured directly or described in a quantified methodology; thus, in this paper, a number of indicators have been implemented to measure and analysis the level of social sustainability.
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Social roles, attitudes, resource constraints, social norms, and perceptions of opportunities are the intervening factors that influence travel activity and patterns (Fried et.al, 1977). Attitudinal and lifestyle variables have the greatest impact among all the intervening factors. By contrast, residential location type had the lowest impact.
(Bagley et. al, 2002)
When processing the first-hand material, these “intervening factors” are considered to be the sub-codes. Different lower-level codes are used according to a variety of answers to the follow-up questions, these sub codes help to further organize the answers, and act as a supporting evidence to the final conclusion.
2.5 Concept model and metrics
The existing literature helps to form a conceptual model of active transportation behavior (Fried et al., 1977). Figure 2.1 covers the more significant aspects used to determine the development of HSR is sustainable regarding the social sector.
Social Roles
Attitudes
Resource Constraints Transportation Behavior
Social Norms
Perceptions of Opportunities
Figure 2.1 Concept Model of Active Transportation Behavior (Fried et. al, 1977)
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The social sustainability metric is made up of indicators derived from the existing literature. Indicators in the metric are used to judge whether the development of HSR is socially sustainable. Description of the indicators are used to define specific aspects that the indicators should cover.
Indicator Description
1. Basic needs and Wealth, education, mental and physical health the quality of life
2. Satisfaction of Satisfaction of wealth, education, mental and physical health basic needs and the quality of life
3. Claim of social Distribution of economic goods; equal opportunity regarding justice quality of life and participation in society
4. Social coherence Integration into social networks
(Derived from Littig & Griessler, 2005)
Figure 2.2 Social Sustainability Indicators and Measurements
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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY
Regarding the current development of Chinese HSR in the third section, the need to discuss (1) implications of HSR construction on travel behavior and (2) the influence of HSR on social sustainability in different regional groups is evident. The two questions raised in the third section are the main focuses of this paper, and the fourth section discusses methodologies used to answer these questions.
Much first-hand, unpublished material about individual experiences is required.
Thus an in-depth, multiple-case study is used as the main instrument. A case study is more appropriate than other methods (e.g., experiment) because the nature of the questions require much work dedicated to describing, understanding, and explaining
(Tellis, 1997). A case study can fulfill these requirements much better than other methods. An in-depth study is required because the question needs a deeper understanding of the context studied. An in-depth study is efficient because "instead of deliberately isolating a phenomenon from its context and focusing on a limited number of variables, an in-depth interview guarantees the observation of the subjects in their environment" (Zainal, 2007).
Multiple case study is more appropriate than single case study because the second question raised is not related to one target, but a collection of multiple targets cannot be solved by the holistic study of a single case (Stake, 2013). Multiple case studies allow the researcher to compare different characteristics, thus providing answers that one individual case study cannot uncover.
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For the reasons above, in-depth, multiple case study is the best methodology used to achieve the main targets of this paper.
The case study focuses on gaining deeper understanding of transportation behavior of regular HSR passengers and testing the propositions raised in the first chapter. Thus qualitative interview would be a suitable method in the case study (DiCicco‐Bloom
& Crabtree, 2006).
3.1 Two Groups of Participants
The participants are 50 HSR travelers who frequently travel between 1. Beijing
(the capital city of China) and Tianjin (a big city about 150 km from Beijing); 2.
Chengdu (the provincial capital of Sichuan province and a major city in south-east
China) and the smaller cities in Sichuan province by HSR. The similarity of the two cases is that the interviewees are those who travel between small cities and bigger cities connected by high-speed rail. However, the cities in the first case are in a regional group located on the eastern coast (a more developed part of China), whereas in the second case, the cities are in a different regional group located on the western inland region
(also much less developed). The region discussed in the first case is much more developed financially than that in the second case.
The main difference in HSR construction between the two cases is that in the first case, HSR is constructed in 2009 and has been in use ever since. Moreover, in the second case, HSR is not available until the year 2016. It is a relatively new railway line
20 in the HSR system.
A significant difference exists between these two region groups, so the selection of participants enables studies about the influence of HSR on regional accessibility in different region groups (Question 2).
Information power in the study could be considered as sufficient though the number of participants is relatively low. The study focuses on a specific group with similar experience (travelling regularly by HSR), and social sustainability theory is already a well-established theory. So a smaller sample would be sufficient in this situation. (Malterud et.al, 2016) Interviewing 25 participants in each case is considered enough because in both cases, when the number of participants reaches 15 in the first case and 17 in the second, answers have started to repeat themselves.
This replication of results occurs is considered to be the signal of saturation because a replication in data means “the domain has been fully sampled” and “all data have been collected” (Morse, 1995)
3.2 Designing the Case Study
3.2.1 The main part
Participants of the multiple case study go through one same set of procedures.
The case study consists of two parts. The first part is a series of multiple-choice questions, aiming to collect necessary information (age, gender; occupation; education,
21 and income level; place of living) in a concise, accurate way. It is shown to the participants directly after they agree to participate in the case study. Doing so also allows the researcher to gain an understanding of the participants' necessary information before proceeding to the next part of this study because it can help the preparation by telling the researcher what to expect.
The second part of this case study is a qualitative interview. The qualitative interview is defined by Maccoby et al. (1954) as "a face to face verbal interchange in which one person, the interviewer, attempts to elicit information or expressions of opinions or belief from another person or persons" (p. 499). The qualitative interview is used in this study because though it has certain drawbacks like case selection problem and inability to transfer the finding into a wider area, it is still the best way to build a theory, and the method would be better to identify explanatory variables (Kelle, 2006).
The interview is made up of 5 main questions and some follow-up questions. The main questions are open-ended, neutral questions and the questions are asked one at a time (Turner, 2010).
The follow-up questions are flexible questions given according to answers to the main questions (Creswell, 2007). They are used to obtain optimal answers from the participants.
The list of main questions of the qualitative interview is in Appendix A.
3.2.2 Follow-up interview
In regards of the pandemic of COVID-19 previously mentioned in chapter 3, 5 22 new samples have been added to the category in order to answer some questions in order to study the following two aspects: How does HSR affect the challenges posed by COVID-19, and how do participants who travel by HSR frequently face the challenges posed by a global pandemic.
These interviews are conducted by following the same procedure mentioned previously from section 3.3 to 3.5, while the codes are different because of a difference in interview questions. The list of added questions can be found in Appendix B.
3.3 Conducting the interview
The main part of the interview is conducted between January 2019 to July 2019, while the follow-up interview is conducted in March 2020.
Snowball sampling is the method to gain participants because it is cost and time- efficient. The sampling method also means the participants are more likely to trust the researcher; therefore, they may disclose more details about their experience with HSR.
So the credibility of the study is improved.
Sampling bias is a significant disadvantage of the method (Kowald et al., 2012).
The disadvantage is made up by asking the participants to talk about their fellow travelers on the HSR, and choosing prime participants of different characteristics.
The research is conducted according to the following procedure:
Identifying Participants
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The participants are people that travel by HSR frequently, and they should have the interest to know about the effect of HSR on people's lives and regional development.
The primary participants, once identified, would receive an invitation and the consent form in the email. After the interview, the primary participants are asked to introduce more participants who meet the criteria mentioned above.
When interviewing the primary participants, suggestions are also asked to improve the questionnaires. The process is called pilot testing. Since the primary participants are known to have an interest in the question studied, they would be right pilot test participants and can help to improve the study (Turner, 2010).
Building Trust
The interview starts by building trust between participants and the researcher. The study starts with researcher explaining the participants’ rights and ensuring them these rights would be protected.
The participants would be shown an email telling them about the nature of the study, methods used to obtain and secure the information, their right to withdraw from the case study, and their right to ask questions at any time. If they agree to participate in the case study, they will sign a consent form and return it to the primary investigator.
Consent will be obtained during the recruitment process before the participants are shown the questionnaire and the beginning of the interview.
The interview is entirely anonymous, and the first-hand data is only available to 24 the author. The participants have been foretold that they may quit the study at any time they wish, and there is no consequence should they refuse to participate in the study or decide to withdraw half-way.
Trust is built by the researcher explaining their own story about studying in a foreign country, stressing the hardship of securing participants during political conflicts between China and Canada, expressing heart-felt gratitude for the participants’ help in this study, and explaining the consequence of violating research integrity.
If the participants are still reluctant to reveal personal details related to the research, the researcher would shift the topic to idle chat about themselves, trying to find things in common with these participants. The common ground may lower participants’ defense by strengthening empathy between them and the researcher.
Asking the Questions
Questions asked in the interview are attached in Appendix A and Appendix B.
Questions in Appendix A are the “grand tour” questions, while questions in Appendix
B are mainly about the effect of COVID-19 on regular HSR travelers’ lives.
Follow-up questions are asked based on the responses of participants. Types of follow-up questions are introduced in Table 3.1
25
Purpose of Asking Example of Follow-up Questions
Elaboration … is very interesting. Could you explain more about the
activity?
Clarification Does that mean … ?
Asking sensitive question Do your friends who often travel by HSR complain about
from a different angle interacting with their parents more frequently? Could you
relate to their stories?
Exploration Could you tell me some stories about other frequent travelers
of HSR?
Are there any interesting people you meet along the way?
Table 3.1 Example of the follow-up questions
3.4 Coding and analyzing the data
Coding is a part of the analytical process of qualitative data (Coffey & Atkinson,
1996). It generates data and concepts for further reviews. The raw material is coded according to each participant, and the analyzed material is later broken into the individual 'thought units.' After that, the codes are sorted according to the two questions in order to answer them. The answers are further discussed in chapter five and chapter six. 26
The raw materials gathered in the interview procedure are a narrative of every-day lives of the regular travelers. But in order to answer the questions, descriptive coding, which “summarizes in a word or noun the basic topic of a passage of qualitative data”
(Saldaña, 2015) is needed to gather the primary codes.
The notes are scripts written on paper during the interview. Traditional manual process is used to code the raw material, the procedure is as introduced below.
Procedure of Coding
Step 1
The main research question is how people evaluate the construction of HSR.
Coding starts with the research question in order to "categorize the data more in accordance with the indigenous terms and categories of … the individual informants"
(Coffey & Atkinson, 1996: 32) and organize the codes to answer my question. An inclusive and open-coding approach is used to find those codes (Strauss & Corbin,
1998).
The primary codes are as follows:
Long-term decision, short-term decision, relationship maintenance, career, education, medical services, entertainment.
The sub-codes, as mentioned in chapter 2, are social roles, attitudes, resource constraints, social norms, and perceptions of opportunities. One stray code is identified
27 from the topic, “level of happiness”.
Step 2
After identifying the main questions, I go through the transcript quickly, to grab a general image of the conversations, in order to find the main codes that each of the transcriptions is centered around. Bearing the main codes in mind, I code the data accordingly and organize the codes from the lower level according to the main codes.
The subcodes are mentioned in detail in section 5 and section 6.
Step 3
Codes are heuristic devices for discovery (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996). Nevertheless, the quotations taken out from the transcript in step 2 are not ready for interpreting.
Marton (1986) suggested that the "pool of meaning" to each quotation is one of the quotation's context. When finding out the pool of meaning, I would try to see things from the respondent's point of view and try to reconstruct the scene of the interview.
When doing so, I would use answers from participants with the same background or traits to limit the pool of meaning, thereby improving the analysis's accuracy. By doing so, I may finish the transformation of the coded data into meaningful data.
28
CHAPTER 4 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF REGULAR HIGH-
SPEED RAIL PASSENGERS
The chapter uses graphs and charts to demonstrate the age group, income level; gender; occupation; the level of income and education; and place of living (in the participants’ hometown) of the participants.
The chapter also provides an assumption about why participants with specified characteristics are missing from the sample and tries to justify the assumption by doing additional interviews.
4.1 Age Group
Age 14 12 10 8 6 4
2 Number Number Participantsof 0 18-22 23-32 33-42 43-52 Above 52 Age
Case1 Case2
Figure 4.1 Age Group
As demonstrated in Figure 4.1, the majority of participants, in this case, are mainly young, aged 18 to 32. There is no significant difference between the two cases.
29
4.2 Gender
Gender 20
15
10
5
Number Number Participantsof 0 Male Female Gender Case 1 Case 2
Figure 4.2 Gender
As shown in figure 4.2, most participants in this case study are female. However, the stats in this part of the case study may not be very accurate, because some would- be male participants refused to take part in this study when asked.
No participant identifies themselves as “Others” when asked about their gender.
4.3 Occupation
Occupation 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Student Physical Worker Intellectual Worker Unemployed
Case 1 Case 2
Figure 4.3 Occupation
30
In each case, 10 participants are full-time students, and 15 are working. These 30 people all declare themselves as intellectual workers (e.g., managers, architects, businessmen, salespeople). Physical workers (e.g., cooks, factory workers, construction workers
Failing to find physical workers who travel by HSR often, six physical workers who leave their families to work are asked about how they travel, and why they choose these methods over HSR.
The physical workers’ education level varies from junior high to three-year college. They work as shop assistants, waiters, or factory workers. They travel hundreds of miles to work in big cities, and travel by local train or bus rather than
HSR.
The first reason for this choice is that the physical workers’ wage is relatively low than the intellectual ones in general, and with the relatively low wages, they have more burden. That is why they are price-sensitive; a price difference of 5 US dollars may be the reason for them giving up HSR.
The second reason is that the physical workers are usually from the undeveloped part of the country and have a more substantial family burden than the intellectual ones. They often work in small private companies, with little or no insurance paid.
They have a higher tendency to take more work shifts instead of spending time with their family.
Moreover, when travel frequency is low, the importance of time spent is not as
31 significant as saving money.
The third reason is, because of the low wages and family background mentioned above, the physical workers have different spending habits compared to the intellectual workers. The comfort of traveling matters less when money can be saved.
An example of a young shop assistant could be used to explain these statements.
She dropped out of school because of a natural disaster, and only received a junior high school diploma. This makes her choice of jobs limited to shop assistant, factory worker, cashier, or other similar jobs with a low salary. She earns about 4000 RMB per month if she works for one shift only.
To make things worse, her father, who has been unemployed for more than five years, stole her ID and lent the money to become wealthy by investing in the stock market.
Reluctant to put her father into prison, the shop assistant saves every penny she has to pay the high interest. She goes home once a year, traveling by local train instead of HSR. By doing so, she saves 250 RMB3on one single trip.
Other people who choose local trains or buses do not suffer from such heavy debt. But they still have their own responsibilities. These responsibilities include paying for their children’s education, purchase a house for their son (which is considered to be necessary for man to get married in many parts of China), support a sick family member or save money for a high-quality life after retirement in the
3 1 RMB is approximately 0.141 USD (xe.com) 32 village where they come from. These people work hard to achieve their goals and usually care less about the hardship that they have to go through during the journey.
4.4 Level of income
Level of Income (per year) 12
10
8
6
4
Number Number Participantsof 2
0 Monthly Income (in RMB)
Case 1 Case 2
Figure 4.4 Level of Income
The participants who earn less than 25,000 RMB per year (minimum wage level in Beijing) are all students, and are entirely financially dependent on their parents.
33
4.5 Level of Education
Level of Education 25
20
15
10
5
Numver Numver Participantsof 0 College Undergraduate Graduate Level of Education
Case 1 Case 2
Figure 4.5 Level of Education
In China, college means three-year post-secondary education, while university means the standard four-year post-secondary education. All participants in this study have had post-secondary education, and the majority of them have been to the university. However, education level in the first case is significantly higher than that in the second case. None of the participants in the second case had post-graduate education.
34
4.6 Place of Living
Place of Living 25
20
15
10
5
Number Number Participantsof 0 Downtown Suburb Country Place of Living
Case 1 Case 2
Figure 4.6 Place of Living
The distinction between downtown, suburb and country area are set according to the regulations of the National Bureau of Statistics of China. The majority of the participants live in cities, and in the Beijing-Tianjin case, none of the participants are from rural areas.
4.7 General Description of High-Speed Rail Passengers
The regular passengers of HSR are mostly young adults between 18 and 32, but the age greatly varies from adulthood to the sixties. They are students and intellectual workers of both genders and grew up in the downtown or suburban area of less developed cities in city clusters. The average wage in the more developed city cluster located in eastern China (case 1) varies greatly according to the profession, while the
35 average wage in south-western China (case 2) varies less and is significantly lower.
All participants in this study have had post-secondary education, and the majority of them are university students or studying for the diploma.
36
CHAPTER 5. IMPLICATIONS OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL
CONSTRUCTION ON REGULAR PASSENGERS' LIVES
5.1 Introduction
This chapter revolves around the first question raised in the second chapter: How do people who frequently travel by HSR between more developed and less developed cities within one city cluster perceive the effect of HSR on their lives?
The chapter is expected to provide an answer to this question by coding the first- hand material and interpreting the given codes. The analysis is made up of two parts, the first part focuses on similarities of the two cases, while the second part discusses the different outcome between the two separate cases, and the reason behind such difference.
5.2 Common characteristics of the two cases
5.2.1 Relevancy of construction of HSR and relocation of human resources varies according to travel motivation
Against one of the hypotheses, the result of the case study shows that the construction of HSR does not increase the tendency to travel between more-developed and less-developed cities in the same city cluster as much as assumed. The effect of
HSR on traveling preferences varies according to the purpose of traveling and the time length of stay in the more-developed cities. Those who travel to work full-time,
37 receive post-secondary education or medical treatment are least likely to be affected.
For those passengers, what the bigger cities have to offer is impossible to replace.
However, those who travel because of sight-seeing, watching plays or shows, and other entertainment; social intercourse; part-time jobs, and short-term apprenticeship are more affected by this change in the traveling method. These passengers declare that without HSR, they would turn to replacements in their home city.
Short-term arrangements
The participants who travel because of short-time arrangements (sight-seeing, watching plays or shows, and other entertainment; social intercourse; part-time jobs and short-time apprenticeship) are the group heavily affected by the construction of
HSR. Possible substitution of HSR, buses, cars, and regular trains are not as favorable as HSR. Buses and regular trains are considered by all participants who fit in the category to be "uncomfortable" "time-consuming" while cars are considered to be
"expensive""inconvenient because of congestion on the high-speed road".
However, the main reason for changing their destiny is the purpose of traveling has less influence on their lives, and replacements are easy to find in the participants' hometown.
One 26-year-old government employee talks about her experience traveling to
Beijing to watch Xiang Sheng, a kind of Chinese traditional comic dialogue. She would leave work at 2 p.m. in the afternoon, travels to Beijing by HSR to watch a
38 show of her favorite comedian, and return home for rest at 10 p.m. via the same transportation method.
My working time is flexible, and it's OK to leave early when there's no work to
do. I usually take the subway to the HSR station and arrive in Beijing at about 4
p.m. After that, I would take a 1-hour subway, and arrive at the Xiang Sheng theatre
at 5 p.m., just in time for the show. After the show, I would grab something to eat
along the way, then return home via the same transportation methods mentioned
before.
I know a number of people traveling in this method with the same frequency.
Watching the show on life is so different from watching them from the theatre. The
atmosphere, the interaction, and the simple fact of being close to my idol, almost
everything is better.
However, I shall not be going that frequently if the HSR doesn't exist. Buses
and trains are so slow, and heavy traffic congestion in Beijing make driving in the
city nearly impossible. I have to turn up at work the day after watching these shows,
and the traditional traveling methods don't fit into my schedule. I would have to
turn to the local Xiang Sheng theatres instead should HSR does not exist, and I am
definitely happier with this new traveling method.
Long-Term arrangements
A large number of participants in the two cases claimed that they gave little 39 thought about the transportation method when making the decision to work or study in the big cities. Those who made such claim suggested in China, the already existing level of regional disparity between big and small cities; urban and rural area is high.
As a result, they would decide to leave their hometown for big cities, with or without
HSR.
The working population would suffer from a lack of high-end jobs and a decrease in wage level. Some even may have difficulties to find a job inside their major. Moreover, some of those who could retain a satisfying position would still have to travel to the larger city on a regular basis, because of the need to attend conferences, negotiate with customers/ suppliers, and go through administrative procedures. The city which they are born in does not provide the necessary resources, thus traveling becomes unavoidable.
A 42-year-old man with two children said he worked in Beijing from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. as an engineer from Monday to Friday, then return to Tianjin on Saturday morning by HSR to spend time with his family. He declares that the economic burden of providing for two children and his wife the main reason for leaving his family and hometown.
It would be nice to stay with my wife and children more often, but as a man, I
feel obligated to provide for them. I would like my children to receive university
education in Canada, and jobs in Tianjin simply don't have a salary high enough
for that. I must leave my family for work even if there are no such convenient means
40
of transportation.
A woman aged 50, who works as a middle-level manager in a state-owned industrial company, said she travels to Beijing once per week on average to talk with her customers, companies in the high-tech industry. According to her, such high-tech industries are non-existent in Tianjin, so traveling is not avoidable. She does not live full time in Beijing, but such a journey is an unavoidable task which her full-time job requires. Therefore, she is also viewed as a participant traveling because of long-term arrangements.
All customers of the company are located in Beijing. Due to confidentiality
concerns, we don't hold meetings over the phone/ via the internet, so I must travel
to face-to-face meetings. The company has employed drivers in order to drive us to
Beijing. But because of heavy congestion in the city, we find HSR and subway more
efficient.
Another problem exists when talking about opportunities in a career. In China, informality is a significant phenomenon in smaller, inland cities (Park et. al, 2012).
These companies suffer higher risk of bankruptcy and their employees would be more likely to become unemployed. What is worse, the owners are reluctant to pay the social insurance fee, thus the workers' lawful rights may be infringed. The construction of HSR would improve the living standard of the people in question,
A 24-year-old woman who works as an accountant in Chengdu talked about her previous unsuccessful working experience in her hometown.
41
My previous employer in Guangyuan said he would not pay for my social
insurance fee, and almost every employer in the local private economy refuse to do
that as well. The only way I can find a better job in my hometown is to pass a Civil
Service Exam and work as a government employee. The competition for the exam is
fierce but the wage is low. And that is the reason why I decided to travel to
Chengdu. Without HSR I would take the long-distance bus, which is not as
comfortable, and would waste much more time. But I can put up with that.
The students face similar problems. According to Ministry of Education of the
PRC (2017), "Double First-Rate University" are the top Chinese Universities certificated and sponsored by the Ministry. Eight of these universities are in Sichuan, and only two of them have part of their campus outside Chengdu, the provincial capital. The number of "Double First-Rate University" in Tianjin is five, a relatively small number compared to that of Beijing (thirty-one). As a result, students from smaller cities are motivated to travelling to big cities to receive university education.
What is more, a diploma in the big cities can help to secure a job in the bigger cities after graduation. As discussed in the previous paragraphs, chances in the job market is different from the smaller cities to the major cities.
For the reasons above, construction of HSR does not have a significant effect on those who travel to receive higher level of education.
A 23-year-old law student talked about her travelling experience and reasons behind her decision. She is studying at one of the best universities in Beijing for
42 master’s degree.
I always dream to become a top lawyer. Pursuing a masters degree in one of
the best law schools in China helps me to achieve this dream. By studying at the law
school, I gain more than an access to better education resources. In Beijing, I found
more important people coming to universities to give speeches. Just think about
what I can learn from these people! It is really exciting! Chance for better
internship, and a possibility of socializing with important people in the field are
also important. I can hardly imagine gaining access to these resources in Tianjin.
So, even if HSR does not exist, I would still leave home in pursuit of my dream.
One other kind of passengers are those who travel from the big cities to the smaller cities to work. They work as government employees or engineer on construction sites. These travels are often a temporary arrangement of one long-term contract. The main part of the contract still requires participants to work in their home city.
At first this kind of passengers would fit better into the "short-term arrangement" category. However, those who travel to the smaller cities for this purpose see their situation similarly as the passengers mentioned above. Although time spent away is short, it is considered to be a part of a grander scheme, and that explains why codes of the said cases resembles those of the "long-term arrangement" category. The lack of
HSR does not have a significant impact on their willingness to travel.
43
5.2.2 Strengthening family ties
However, participants traveling for the long-term purposes admitted the HSR helps to greatly lift their mood by strengthening bonds with families and friends.
While working or studying in these big cities, these participants have to stay away from their loved ones for a long period before the construction of HSR, now they have the choice of returning to their families on a more regular basis. This is important for all age, gender and occupation group participated in the interview.
As discussed in the literature review section, the passengers of HSR are time and price sensitive. The participants declare that frequent travel from hometown to the bigger cities cost too much time and money. The construction of HSR makes returning home more frequently affordable.
This section focuses on the participants who travel for "long-time arrangements".
The section discusses the reason behind this separation, why it has become a problem to many, and how does HSR change the living condition of the participants, both for the better and for the worse.
What kept the family apart?
The participants who travel for "long-term arrangements", as mentioned in the second paragraph, are kept away from their family both for practical difficulties and for their own choice.
44
Living with the family is considered to be unrealistic for many participants, though they would very much like that to come true. The living cost in the larger cities is high. The average housing price in Beijing is 30143.00 RMB per square meter, almost two times higher than that of Tianjin (16105.00 RMB per square meter).
Housing price in Sichuan varies greatly according to a different location in the province, but the huge difference of housing price resembles that between Beijing and
Tianjin (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2020).
So, the statistics explain why it is hard to pay for commercial houses in the bigger, more developed city. Participants declare that many of them buy their houses in the remote suburb area of smaller, less-developed cities.
Another reason for the separation of passengers from their families is the Hu
Kou policy of China (Wang et al., 2004). Hu Kou policy ties people to the place they are registered. Those who aren't registered cannot benefit from public education, health care, and other social welfare. Also, students cannot take the college entrance exam out of the registered city or province. Education is the main reason for children of passengers mentioned in the previous section to stay in their hometown, away from their ward.
Other reasons, including difficulties in adapting to a new environment, also result in the separation of the family members.
However, for some participants, traveling to the bigger cities for these "long-term arrangements" is merely a solution for family problems. Their outlook on the world,
45 life, and values are very much different from their parents. For some young people, living under the same roof, or in the same city, with their parents is too much to bear.
As a result, they fled the hometown and decided to try their luck in the wide world.
Changes made by construction of HSR
Participants claim to return to their families more frequently. Codes gathered from the first-hand data helps to explain what the participants might gain from returning to their families and friends more often.
The participants with children claim that they may fulfill their job as parents and spouses better when they are able to return home on weekends. Family responsibilities are the main code mentioned in these interviews.
A woman aged 41, who is a mother of a sixteen-year-old, works in Beijing full time from Monday to Friday. On Saturday morning, she returns home via HSR to help around the house and take care of her child. In China, working women are required to balance their character as a skilled professional and a good mother. She thinks HSR helps her to achieve the target and perform her duties.
I have to take very good care of my son. You can't be fully dependent on
teachers and public-school education if you want the kid to study in the best
universities. I check his homework every weekend and cook his favorite dish for
him.
46
My parents and the boy's father take care of him for me when I am away. It is
very nice of them to do so, and I appreciate the effort. But my parents are aging.
And my husband, like all man, isn't really capable of providing a child with all he
needs. It is very tiring, traveling between the two cities. But I must provide my child
with money and good care, so the effort is really worthwhile.
Some of the aging population would travel via HSR to take care of their grandchildren. This kind of traveling happens in a mutual way: from the bigger cities to smaller cities, and vice versa. The price for babysitters in big cities are rocket high, and those with quality are hard to find. So, grandparents would travel to their children's city when their grandchildren are born, to help the inexperienced mom and dad taking care of the newborn. These participants see the behavior as taking responsibility as grandparents, instead of sacrificing for the family.
Emotional comfort is another benefit for the participants, and the comfort goes mutual ways. The participants and their families (sometimes close friends are also included) share precious moments that would otherwise be spent wasted flipping through newspapers or scrolling over Weibo and WeChat friend circle, the two most popular social media in mainland China.
A young architect, aged 23, talked about her experience of returning from work and spending time with her parents every weekend. She graduated from university half a year ago and has been working in a construction site away from Chengdu ever
47 since. It takes fifty minutes to travel from her workplace to Chengdu Railway Station.
She goes home every weekend to spend time with her parents.
I am born and raised in Chengdu. And I have never been away for such a long
period of time ever since birth, so I really miss mom and dad. They are not verbal
about feelings, but judging from their facial and body expression, they feel exactly
the same as I do.
We don't do much together, because all three of us work full time on weekdays.
But watching TV and cooking together is quite enough.
Another influence of HSR is that traveling may boost consumption. Family members of the participants who travel for "long-term arrangements" are often very dependent on the participants financially. If not, the participants are still more likely to be better off financially than their families.
The participants claim that when they are shopping with their aging parents and children, these family members are more likely to purchase expensive items. Some also claim that older adults do not often know how to buy or use modern electronics.
So unless the participants return home to purchase these items, their parents would simply find ways to cope without them.
5.3 What set the two cases apart?
The major difference that sets the two cases apart is that there are more routes of
48
HSR in the first case than that in the second case. Those who travel for sight-seeing are not affected as much. But in the second case, participants who travel to work report a shortage of tickets.
Those who travel for "long-term arrangements" in the second case also express the wish to have monthly tickets. The participants are pricing sensitive and would not mind saving money in this way. However, participants in the first case have already had the benefit for about three years, starting from the year 2017 (Monthly Ticket from Beijing to Tianjin available in May 2017).
49
CHAPTER 6 EVALUATION OF SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
6.1 Basic needs and the quality of life
6.1.1 Wealth
All participants claim that they usually buy the second class ticket, with several participants suggesting they would switch to first-class tickets when second class tickets are not available. This preference is loosely affected by both the participants’ income, family income, and closely connected to consumption habits.
The second-class ticket traveling from Beijing and Tianjin via HSR is 58 RMB, and
Beijing has an average per capita disposable income of 67756 RMB in 2019. Second class ticket traveling within Sichuan varies from 10 to 100 RMB based on travel distance4. The average per capita disposable income in the urban area is 36154 RMB in 2019. However, participants in the second group declare the pricing of train tickets to be reasonable, while many participants in the first group declare to have difficulties paying for the ticket.
These said participants have mentioned the words and phrases like “expected” or
“supposed to”. They declare the existence of HSR creates the demand of returning home on a more regular basis, and blame the high living cost in Beijing (especially the sky-high rental price) for their financial difficulties. Chinese tradition greatly values family, and participants are sometimes pressured into spending more than they
4 China Railway 12306 (12306.com) 50 can afford, thus creating a heavy financial burden, and sometimes the results depend on family members or significant others. One of the participants said:
I am expected by the parents to visit them back home every weekend. They won’t
be throwing a tantrum if I fail to turn up. But mom would be really vocal about
disappointment in calls and video chats. I don’t think there would be such
expectation if HSR does not exist. They just think half an hour ride is not such a
big deal, so I should try my best to travel.
However, most of the participants who choose to travel by HSR to work report a rise in income. This is a result of relocation or an increase in job openings. They also consider the ticket to be pricey, but the rise in income could very well cover the cost.
6.1.2 Education
HSR has a relatively small impact on the allocation of public education resources. The public university students have no choice but to leave home should they wish to receive education from the well-known universities located in big cities. And as mentioned in previous chapters, the Hukou policy restricts students from receiving public K-12 education from any other city except for that they are registered in.
However, for children born in the middle- and higher-class families in small cities and suburb area, HSR provides more options for summer classes and tutoring. In these cases, HSR improves accessibility to both students and teachers. Teachers may travel to a student’s home in a small city or suburban area for tutoring purposes, and a
51 student can go to summer camps or TOFEL cram school located in Beijing or
Chengdu, then return home on weekends to socialize or relax.
In both case one and case two, the improvement to life quality, in this case, is heavily linked with financial status. Those who are economically well-off benefit more from the HSR because they gain access to education resources and those who are not so well-off don’t have such benefits.
It must be mentioned that participants who do not benefit from HSR in this aspect still do not fit into the low-income category. As discussed in Chapter 3, participants with low income do not travel by HSR regularly.
6.1.3 Mental and physical health
The physical health of the participants is affected in two ways. The first group of participants reports “a loss of sleep”, “disturbed sleeping pattern” and “physically drained” as a result of long traveling time. The process of traveling for participants in the first group includes more than the half-an-hour HSR ride. Beijing, with the urban district area of 16, 410 km² in the year 2018, is one of the largest metropolises worldwide. Tianjin has an urban district area of 11, 760 km²5. Although the city is nowhere as big as Beijing, it is among the second-tier cities in China. The two cities are heavily populated. As a result, the roads in both cities are severely congested, traveling from one end to another would sometimes require “more than an hour”, as
5 National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2018 52 one participant stated. Average traveling time for a one-way trip for the first case would take approximately more than three hours, while in the second case, time varies greatly as a result of different travel destinations.
Cities in Sichuan are much less populated and crowded, with an urban district area of 85042 km². And total traveling time in the second group is much less than that in the first group because time traveling within the city in the second group is much less than that of the first. So traveling in the first group often results in a lack of sleep, which is a less common phenomenon in the second group.
HSR improves the accessibility of the participants to their families by reducing traveling time. According to section 6.2.1, it can be argued that these participants feel more obliged to spend weekends with their families. The obligation to return has added pressure to those who do not feel attached to families and friends in their hometown, and returning to the “manipulative” parents on a more regular basis often increases pressure on both groups of participants.
HSR has also become a safety concern during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Travelers and train attendants alike have been found with the disease in January, causing panic among travelers.
Travel via HSR has been greatly reduced from late January to April. Traffic in the first group has been much reduced, and in the second group, some routes have been totally postponed. Most participants have decided to “cancel” the trips due to potential health risks.
53
However, many decided to return to work by HSR. These participants are mostly middle-class workers, suffering wage cuts but jobs rather unaffected by the epidemic.
They cannot afford to lose their jobs and has to take the risk by traveling via HSR.
6.2 Satisfaction of basic needs and the quality of life
In both cases, participants are mostly pleased with the construction of HSR because of the increased accessibility. But as mentioned in section 6.2, those who are slightly worse-off would also express dissatisfaction in a gentle way. Those who become dependent on their significant other or parents because of the obligation to travel feel uncomfortable because of the price of an HSR ticket and might even feel
“robbed” by the pricey restaurants near HSR train stations. And those who have to put up with the parents’ endless rants feel “much frustration and pressure” at weekends.
When questioned about concerns regarding their safety during the COVID-19 epidemic, participants express less concern and think the travel to be “safe mostly” but are still “slightly nervous”. Knowledge about how the virus spread, confidence in government prevention methods and enough protections against the virus are the three main reasons for participants to feel such way.
6.3 Claim of social justice
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The difference in living style and level of income between the two cases still exists. According to Chapter 5, HSR only helps to promote regional integration and could not contribute to reducing the huge gap between eastern and western China.
However, the participants are still very pleased with HSR. That is because development within each case is also already very unequal. Although some participants feel uneasy and pressured into making choices, every participant thinks highly of the construction of the HSR. In their opinion, HSR could “more equally distribute opportunities and resources than before”, so the construction of HSR would be beneficial for the whole society in the long term.
6.4 Social Coherence
The situation varies greatly between participants who travel for a long time and short time purposes. HSR increases accessibility for resources in the region that is covered by the train. Those who choose to travel for “short-time arrangements” (as introduced in Chapter 5) reports that HSR helps to facilitate resources located in the larger cities (Beijing in the first case, Chengdu in the second). And this helps to improve social coherence in the region. For example, a participant could leave her home city at 5 p.m., arrive at her favorite Xiangsheng (a type of Chinese traditional folk art) theatre two and a half hours later. She would interact with friends she made who share the same passion about Xiangsheng and have an increased social interaction.
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This “increase in in-person interaction” helps to develop new social connections based solely on interest, and the social coherence within the same region.
For those who travel because of “long-time arrangements”, things could be conflicted. They can stay comfortably in the society in their hometown by returning to them on weekends and holidays to socialize. But social interaction in the city they work/ study in is affected because of a lack of time.
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CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY
7.1 Summary
In the last 12 years, the construction of High-Speed Rail (HSR) has greatly reduced traveling time in China, and as a result, greatly improved accessibility among cities and suburbs within each city-cluster. Traveling between cities via HSR has become a new lifestyle for many Chinese city dwellers. This lifestyle, although severely disrupted or even made impossible during the COVID-19 pandemic, has partly returned to normal step by step since March 2020. Existing literature mainly focuses on using statistics and data to analyze and discuss the rapid development of HSR and its influence on the lives of ordinary Chinese citizens. These big data analytics provides a general image for the development of HSR and its impact on economic, society, and environment aspects. However, the relationship between HSR development and society can and should be further examined on smaller, more local narratives. The present study is designed to discuss this aspect of HSR influence by investigating the living patterns of two groups of regular passengers, focusing on changes in their living patterns, their feelings and attitudes toward these changes, and the difference between these two groups. The two groups are set apart by geographical differences because the difference in development among different region in China is still huge.
Recognizing the problems, two questions are raised in this study: 1. How do people who frequently travel by HSR between more developed and less developed cities
57 within one city cluster perceive the effect of HSR on their lives?
2. It is known that HSR would improve regional accessibility. How does this improvement of accessibility affect social sustainability?
Following the multiple-case study conducted in the third chapter, the fourth chapter presents the general outcome of the research by drawing an image of regular passengers of the HSR. The chapter achieves this purpose by describing age, gender, education level, income level, and place of living of participants interviewed. The regular passengers are mostly young and middle-age adults from middle-class families, with more-than-average income and university education. These passengers are mostly from less developed cities in each city cluster, either working or intend to work in the intellectual field.
The chapter also discussed probable selection bias because of the failure to include physical workers. By interviewing more participants, it is clear that the physical workers, with a lower level of education and income, and higher family burden, do not usually consider HSR as an option. Therefore, the probable selection bias is proven to be non-existent.
The fifth chapter proceeds to discuss the living patterns of regular passengers of HSR.
It turns out that most passengers who travel would still travel for the same purposes due to the great development inequalities within each city cluster. However, accessibilities to community resources and to families/ friends increase alike in the two cases regardless of differences in economic status and level of regional
58 development. The difference in community resources still exists between the two cases, and the construction of HSR does not help to eliminate or reduce these differences.
The sixth chapter proceeds to examining the level of social sustainability using these standards and claims although HSR helps to make the improvements mentioned in
Chapter 6, the level of social coherence and claim to social sustainability level is not often improved by the construction.
7.2 Discussion
The two aims of HSR mentioned in The Plan, as mentioned in the first chapter, are to reduce regional inequality and strengthen integration within the city cluster.
According to the existing literature, from the economists’ point of view, the target has been achieved already.
However, regarding the regional integration process, regular passengers of the HSR are primarily well-educated city dwellers from the middle-class. These people already have advantages compared to those who have fewer wages or live in a rural area.
The tendency of traveling for work or business negotiation has not been much affected by the construction of HSR. That is because of the huge inequality between eastern and western China, and between the larger and smaller cities in the same city cluster. The tendency to spend time with loved ones has increased because of better accessibility. On the other hand, those who study or work in larger cities have less 59 tendency to socialize in the larger city which they have chosen to live in. This act has a negative effect on the social coherence process of these said regular passengers.
However, the connection of these participants with their local communities is much stronger because the increase of in-person interaction. As one of them said, they are
“more like guests than ever by their own choice” in the cities they chose to work or study in.
Change in family dynamic is also noticed. Construction of HSR results in a decrease in travel time and cost. So, some of the participants, especially young adults who study/ work in big cities, feel they are more obliged to interact with their family and friends in big cities. Parents of these young adults are also more likely to travel to the big cities and visit their children. The increased closeness would generally benefit the participants by allowing them to fulfill their family roles, however, they are also feeling more obliged to return to their families often. This obligation would sometimes become a pressure and make them dependent on their family members or significant others.
This increase mobility also allows parents or other authority roles in the family to visit young children who are living in big cities for “long-term arrangements”. These authority roles are able to exercise control on the said participants, something they would not be able to do in the past. This would also result in an increase pressure on the participants.
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7.3 Contribution and limitation
The main drawback of the study lies in the limitation of participants selected and the cases. The multiple case study only covers two city clusters with 50 regular passengers and has yet to include the many city clusters connected by HSR or the large population of regular passengers. Also, the participants are selected by snow- ball sampling, though Chapter 4 has out ruled one major possibility of bias, a larger number of samples may provide a more profound understanding of this topic.
The study provides new insight into the social sustainability effect studies of HSR by recognizing possible drawbacks in most quantitative studies and the importance of small narrative. By telling individual stories of grass-root participants, the study intends to explore the unknown field of individual lives affected by the study and provides an outcome about implications in future studies. That being said, the study can act as a platform for further research on the impacts of transportation systems on the social aspects.
7.4 Policy Implications
HSR tracks in China have a larger negative impact on the smaller cities in western
China than that in the eastern China. Reason of this difference is that the smaller cities in western China are much less developed than that in the east. Two subsequent suggestions are made because of this phenomenon, so that the construction of HSR can achieve its intended purposes.
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First, smaller cities in western China connected to larger cities in the same region should build a unique industry that does not exist in the larger cities connected to them. This could help the smaller cities to retain a self-sustaining economic system, instead of fading into a residential area of a larger city.
Second, psychological health of those who travel because of “long-term arrangements” should become a concern of the authority. The increased pressure of fast-paced life has already provided great psychological health challenge. Feeling obligated to travel back home increases dependency of frequent travelers on their families or significant others. Authority roles in a family would also have larger influence on the young children who travel to work in bigger cities, which increases tension and poses a threat to psychological health of said travelers. The public health department can address the concern by providing better psychological programs for the young working generation in bigger cities.
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APPENDIX 1
Part 1 Basic Information
Please choose one option that suits your condition best.
1. Age.
18-22; 23-32; 33-42; 43-52; 53-62
2. Gender
Female; Male; Other; Unknown
3. Occupation
Student; Industrial worker; white-collar worker; Other (______)
4. Yearly income (RMB)
0; less than 25,500; 25,500 – 80,000; 80,000 – 180,000; more than
180,000
5. Education level
junior-high; senior-high; bachelor level; master level; doctor level;
Other (______)
6. Place of living
rural area; suburb; city core
*As defined in the 2010 China population census
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Part 2 Interview Questions
Please use real-life examples to justify your answers
1. On what frequency do you travel by HSR (high-speed rail)?
2. Why are you travelling to the higher-tier city? Will you still go there if there is no
HSR?
Do you think you are better-off or worse-off financially after the construction of
HSR?
3. What means of travel did you use before there is HSR?
Why do you choose HSR over them now?
Is your life affected by the change of traveling method?
4. Do you think there are changes in working opportunities at home after the construction of HSR?
What about medical services, education and infrastructure?
5. What’s your plan for the future? Are you going to move your family to the higher- tier city, or coming back home, or continue to travel between the two cities? Why?
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APPENDIX 2
Interview Questions
1. When did you last travel by HSR? What was it like? How do you feel (nervous/ afraid/ anxious etc.)? Why?
2. Did you take any precautions against the 2019 Novel Coronavirus during your travel? What kind of precautions? Did the other passengers on the same train take these precautions?
3. How losing access to HSR influence your life (cost of living, relationships, emotions, employment)?
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