The Case of Subway Systems in Beijing
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Shanjun Li Yanyan Liu Using big data to evaluate the impacts of transportation infrastructure investment The case of subway systems in Beijing April 2020 Impact Transportation Evaluation Repor t 115 About 3ie The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) promotes evidence-informed, equitable, inclusive and sustainable development. We support the generation and effective use of high-quality evidence to inform decision-making and improve the lives of people living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries. We provide guidance and support to produce, synthesise and quality assure evidence of what works, for whom, how, why and at what cost. 3ie impact evaluations 3ie-supported impact evaluations assess the difference a development intervention has made to social and economic outcomes. 3ie is committed to funding rigorous evaluations that include a theory-based design and that use the most appropriate mix of methods to capture outcomes and are useful in complex development contexts. About this report 3ie accepted the final version of the report, Using big data to evaluate the impacts of transportation infrastructure investment: the case of subway systems in Beijing, as partial fulfilment of requirements under grant DPW1.1106 awarded through Development Priorities Window 1. The report is technically sound and 3ie is making it available to the public in this final report version as it was received. No further work has been done. The 3ie technical quality assurance team for this report comprises Francis Rathinam, Monica Jain, Deeksha Ahuja, an anonymous external impact evaluation design expert reviewer and an anonymous external sector expert reviewer, with overall technical supervision by Marie Gaarder. The 3ie editorial production team for this report comprises Anushruti Ganguly and Akarsh Gupta. All of the content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not represent the opinions of 3ie, its donors or its board of commissioners. Any errors and omissions are also the sole responsibility of the authors. All affiliations of the authors listed in the title page are those that were in effect at the time the report was accepted. Please direct any comments or queries to the corresponding author, Shanjun Li at: [email protected]. Funding for this impact evaluation was provided by UK aid through the Department for International Development. A complete listing of all of 3ie’s donors is available on the 3ie website. Suggested citation: Li, S and Liu, Y, 2020. Using big data to evaluate the impacts of transportation infrastructure investment: the case of subway systems in Beijing, 3ie Impact Evaluation Report 115. New Delhi: International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). Available at: https://doi.org/10.23846/DPW1IE115 Cover photo: JI ZHOU / Flickr © International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), 2020 Using big data to evaluate the impacts of transportation infrastructure investment: the case of subway systems in Beijing Shanjun Li Cornell University Yanyan Liu International Food Policy Research Institute Impact Evaluation Report 115 April 2020 Acknowledgements We thank Roger von Haefen, Jonathan Hughes, Matthew E. Kahn, Daniel McMillen, Till Requate, Dan Silverman, Kenneth Small, Kerry Smith, Matthew Turner, Clifford Winston, Shuang Zhang, Jinhua Zhao and the participants at Brookings-Tsinghua Conference, Cornell University, the first JEEM conference Jinan University, and Ren-min University for helpful comments. We acknowledge the financial support from the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) under project DPW1.1106. The additional fund from the National Natural Science Foundation of China under project 71628303, Cornell Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, and Cornell Institute for the Social Sciences is appreciated. i Summary During the past decade, nearly 200 million people in China have migrated from rural to urban areas, making it the largest migration in human history. Rapid urbanization brings improvement in the standard of living and opportunities for economic growth along with huge environmental and societal challenges. The growing urban population and unprecedented increase in vehicle ownership has led to severe traffic congestion and air pollution in virtually all major urban areas in China, a common challenge faced by other emerging economies such as Brazil and India. To address these challenges, central and local governments in China are undertaking huge investment in transportation infrastructure. China’s total investment in transportation infrastructure in 2014 amounted to nearly 4% of its GDP. Subway systems are being developed and expanded in all major cities: China’s 12th national five-year plan (2011-2015) outlined 69 new subway lines to be constructed with a total length of 2,100 kilometer and spending of RMB 800 billion (USD 130 billion). What are the social and economic impacts of these rapid and large-scale investments in transportation infrastructure? To what extent can they address traffic congestion and air pollution problems? Do the benefits from these investments justify their costs? Understanding these questions is important not only for government policies in China but for other emerging economies as well. In this project, we exploit a variety of data sets and different empirical methods to provide the first thorough assessment of the impacts of the rapid expansion of the subway system in Beijing, China. This study has resulted in three journal articles, two papers published at the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the other paper published at American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. Another paper is in final preparation for submission to an academic journal. We find that subway expansions in Beijing significantly improved air quality, reduced traffic congestion, and affected travel modes and housing prices. Cost-benefit analysis suggests that total benefits from health and time saving alone would exceed the costs of subway expansion. Most of the cost from subway expansion needs to be justified from traffic congestion relief and other economy-wide impacts, rather than improved air quality. Although different transportation policies can achieve the same level of traffic congestion reduction, they could have very different impacts on the housing market and the spatial pattern of household locations. Both lower-income and higher-income households benefit from subway expansion. However, the welfare increase is significantly larger for higher-income households than lower-income households. Our results are most externally valid in large, dense cities that have sparse subway systems in place and are considering expansions. China alone has 160 cities that have a population greater than 1 million people. As rapid urbanization in developing countries has become a global trend, our study also provides useful policy recommendations for other developing countries. This is particularly true for India, where PM2.5 concentrations are similar to China and traffic congestion in major cities is getting worse. ii Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ i Summary ........................................................................................................................ ii List of figures and tables ............................................................................................. iv Abbreviations and acronyms ....................................................................................... v 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 2. Intervention, Theory of Change and Research Hypotheses ................................... 2 2.1 Description............................................................................................................ 2 3. Evaluation .................................................................................................................. 5 3.1 Evaluation questions ............................................................................................. 5 3.2 Data and methods of effects on traffic congestion ................................................. 5 3.3 Data and methods of effects on air quality ............................................................ 7 3.4 Data and methods of effects on travel mode, housing prices, and welfare .......... 14 4. Findings ................................................................................................................... 19 4.1 Impacts on traffic congestion .............................................................................. 19 4.2 Impacts on air quality .......................................................................................... 24 4.3 Impacts on travel mode, housing prices, and welfare .......................................... 28 5. Benefit-cost analysis............................................................................................... 31 6. Conclusions and recommendations ...................................................................... 34 Appendix: Figures and tables .................................................................................... 36 Reference ..................................................................................................................... 61 iii List of figures and tables Figure 1: Beijing subway expansion timeline ..................................................................