Page 74 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Givoni, Moshe. Chen, Xueming.

Table 4. Comparison of routes on which the modes compete.

Airline Rail Air linehaul Train linehaul Air fare in Train fare
Origin
frequency frequency time (min) time (min) CNY in CNY

Beijing 41 34 150 336 336 553
Changsha 11 2 105 402 220 468.5
Fuzhou 8 7 80 377 188 261.5
Jinan 2 1 85 236 200 398.5
Longyan 1 1 85 570 250 373.5
nanchang 4 3 85 376 260 237
Qingdao 13 4 80 398 227 518
Tianjin 11 2 115 303 300 513.5
Wenzhou 3 7 65 212 230 226
Wuhan 7 15 90 301 336 302.5
Xiamen 23 7 80 513 200 328
Yichang 1 2 90 496 540 348.5
Zhengzhou 8 3 80 410 227 236.5

Note: For door-to-door travel time it is assumed that access and waiting time is 100 min for a flight and 60 min for an Hsr travel.

5. Assessing the potential for air-rail integration

Figures 2 and 3 show the cities from which there is a direct air service and rail service to
Hongqiao airport and rail station, respectively. The maps also include a 900 km radius line
around Hongqiao hub to depict the distance where the two modes are considered to still be
in direct competition. Somewhat surprisingly, there are many more direct flights than rail
service to the hub (not necessarily to Shanghai, since many rail services terminate at the
other main railway stations). There is a clear duplication of air and rail services to the hub
from several cities (see below) and, given rail connectivity to cities that offer HSR service
to the hub, large potential for substitution by rail of some of the flight services, especially
given the low frequency of service by some airlines (see below). Altogether, there are 61
destinations within 900 km radius that are served directly form the hub by air services and
26 such destinations served by rail.
A more detailed analysis of the routes served by air and rail to Hongqiao hub reveals 13
routes in which services are offered by both modes (competition routes – see Table 4) and
additional 56 routes where the service is only offered by one of the modes (complementary
routes, excluding international destinations).

With respect to fares, and in general, on the routes where the modes compete flights services
are cheaper (Table 4) .Out of 13 routes, on eight routes the flights were considerably
11
cheaper (more than 50 Yuan and up to about 300 Yuan), on four routes the fares were
comparable and only on the route from Yichang using HSR was considerably cheaper, by
almost 200 Yuan from flying. In terms of service frequency, the differences between the
modes are relatively small and the choice between high (over 10) medium (between 5 and
10) and low (under 5) daily service frequency is very similar for aircraft and rail services.
With the exception of one route, the airlines in general offer higher level of services. With
respect to time, and restricting the comparison to in-vehicle time (as opposed to door-to-

72 360.revista de alta velocidad