Chin. Geogra. Sci. 2012 Vol. 22 No. 3 pp. 319 333 doi: 10.1007/s11769-012-0538-9 www.springerlink.com/content/1002-0063 Transportation Development Transition in China JIN Fengjun 1, DING Jinxue 1, 2, WANG Jiao e 1, LIU Dong 1, 2, 3, WANG Chengjin 1 (1. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; 2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3. Transport Planning and Research Institute, Ministry of Transport, Beijing 100028, China) Abstract: Scientific development is an invaluable asset to a country. Policies and development modes should be carried out based on scientific findings not only in industry, but also in transportation infrastructure construction. Building an integrated transportation system, which is in line with the national requirements of China and supports sustainable socio-economic development, is a key strategic issue related to building a moderately prosperous society and achieving realistic goals of a medium-level developed country. Based on a systematic review of the advances in China's transportation infrastructure over the last 60 years, this paper explores the main drivers of transportation development, including national policy, transportation structure, investment efficiency, and technological innovation. Analysis shows that China s comprehensive transportation infrastructure construction since 1949 can be divided into five stages initiated by these drivers, which correspond to four transition modes: policy transition, structural transition, efficiency transition, and technology transition. The transition path of China's transportation development shows that the dominant factors have changed, and the interval for each transition has shortened. With the implementation of the 12th Five-Year Plan, China's transportation infrastructure construction is showing some new characteristics and facing a new development transition. Finally, this paper analyzes the trends in transportation development in China and concludes that technological innovation will be the main driving force to increase the transportation supply and service area in the future. Keywords: transportation infrastructure; development transition; integrated transportation system; impact factor Citation: Jin Fengjun, Ding Jinxue, Wang Jiao e, Liu Dong, Wang Chengjin, 2012. Transportation development transition in China. Chinese Geographical Science, 22(3): 319 333. doi: 10.1007/s11769-012-0538-9 1 Introduction After 60 years of construction and development since the founding of the People s Republic of China, China's transportation infrastructure has undergone several developmental transitions, and now has basically solved the lag problem. Comprehensive scale, technology level, service capabilities, and coverage scope of the transportation infrastructure have basically satisfied the needs of socio-economic development. Currently, China's transportation infrastructure has entered a new stage in which all transportation modes have been developed comprehensively and a modern, integrated transportation system has been formed (Jin et al., 2008). The 12th Five- Year Plan period (2011 2015) is a crucial stage for China's socio-economic development, when transportation infrastructure construction will show some new characteristics. For the new period, the central government of China has clearly proposed a tentative idea for building an integrated transportation system, namely according to the principle of developing appropriately in advance, coordinating the development of all transportation modes, building a national rapid railway network and highway network, and forming a preliminary, integrated transportation system where network facilities are coordinated with each other, technology equip- Received date: 2011-06-16; accepted date: 2011-10-27 Foundation item: Under the auspices of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41171107, 41001082), Programme of Bingwei Excellent Young Scientists of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences Corresponding author: WANG Jiao e. E-mail: jiaoewang@163.com Science Press, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, CAS and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
320 Chinese Geographical Science 2012 Vol. 22 No. 3 ments are advanced and applicable, and transportation services are safe and efficient. This means that China's transportation infrastructure faces a new development transition, adjusting from priority development to comprehensive and coordinated development. From 1940 1950, some developed countries such as the United States and Germany proposed the idea of building an integrated transportation system in order to coordinate the development of railway, highway, waterway, air and pipeline transportation (Milton and Anna, 1971). Currently, the United States has formed a coordinated, integrated transportation system that mainly includes road-based passenger transportation, railway and river-based cargo transportation, and other modes (Zhao, 2004). The United States has experienced several transitions since the introduction of an integrated transportation system (MacGill, 1948), with the dominant mode transferring from rivers to rails and finally to roads. The development process has fit the United States' economic needs in different stages, and efficiently promoted economic growth (Li and Bai, 2011). The evolution of the United States' transportation infrastructure is an example of a country's transportation infrastructure experiencing several major developmental transitions from the initialization stage to a complete stage or from a primary stage to an advanced stage (Todd, 2003). In fact, the researches to the transportation infrastructure for the undeveloped countries have also reached the same conclusion (Edward et al., 1963). Systematically analyzing the construction, evolution, and transition of transportation infrastructure can help grasp the direction of its future development and provide a theoretical basis for making a country's macroeconomic policies (Jin, 2007). The foreigners have carried out fruitful research to the transition of transportation infrastructure (National Governors' Association, 1989; Edward, 1996; Becky, 1999; Lisa and Romano, 2003). However, due to different understandings of the concept of transportation development transition, few Chinese scholars have made systematic analyses of its evolution. Based on the analysis mentioned above, this paper defines the concept of transportation development transition as the process of a transportation infrastructure's development track undergoing significant changes under the influence of policy regimes, transportation structures, investment efficiency, and technological innovation in a certain historical period. According to Year Book of China Transportation & Communications (Ministry of Transport of the People s Republic of China, 1980 2010) and China Statistical Yearbook (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 1980 2010), the paper systematically explores and evaluates the track of transportation development transition in China for the more than 60 years since the founding of the People s Republic of China, and analyzes future trends in development transition with a view to provide theoretical evidence for promoting transportation development. 2 Historical Review and Evaluation of Transportation Development Since 1949, especially in the most recent 30 years after the reform and opening up policies, transportation development in China has seen great advancements. The scale of transportation facilities was expanded rapidly and the technology level was improved significantly. China has formed an extensive transportation system with a comprehensive infrastructure network (Fig. 1) and great capacity. From the perspectives of security and socio-economic development, China s transportation infrastructure basically solved the deficiency problem of supply capacity in the 20th century and has entered the adapting stage in the past 10 years. A wide range of data shows that China's transportation infrastructure has been growing rapidly both in quantity and quality in recent years. 2.1 Accumulation of quantity: A gradually expanded scale of transportation In the early years of the People s Republic of China, the scale of China s transportation routes was small and the quality was poor. The total mileage was only 206 700 km by the end of 1950. Until the end of the 1970s, the infrastructure still lagged behind the demand and was a bottleneck restricting socio-economic development. In 1978, the total mileage was 1.23 10 6 km. After the reform and opening up, the construction of transportation infrastructure sped up, but still lagged behind economic development until the late 1990s. In 2000, the total mileage of transportation routes reached 3.12 10 6 km, and formed an integrated transportation system with certain scale and various transportation modes. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the central government
JIN Fengjun et al. Transportation Development Transition in China 321 has adopted a new strategy, namely to largely expand infrastructure investment in response to the Asian financial crisis with a purpose of stimulating domestic demand and promoting steady economic growth (Jin et al., 2005). Under the support of large-scale investment, China's transportation infrastructure maintained rapid development for a decade. The scale, level and optimization of the transportation system s organization have undergone tremendous changes. By the end of 2009, the total mileage exceeded 6.48 10 6 km, and the capacity was greatly improved to guarantee rapid socio-economic development. Compared with socio-economic development, the transportation infrastructure was gradually transformed from a lagged-type to an adaptive-type, and then to an advanced-type (Fig. 2). Recently, the total mileage of transportation routes has grown rapidly. Meanwhile, high-speed transportation such as high-speed railways, highways, and air transportation has also developed greatly. With the six wide railway speed-up from 1997 to 2007, China started to construct its high-speed railways. The first high-speed railway line, the Beijing Tianjin inter-city railway, was opened in 2008. Then the passenger lines between Hefei Nanjing, Jinan Qingdao, Shijiazhuang Taiyuan, Hefei Wuhan, Wuhan Guangzhou, Zhengzhou Xi'an, Shanghai Nanjing, and Nanjing Hangzhou were also Fig. 1 Transportation infrastructure network of China Fig. 2 Development of China's total transportation mileage
322 Chinese Geographical Science 2012 Vol. 22 No. 3 opened one after the other. By the end of 2010, the mileage of high-speed railways in China reached 8358 km, the longest in the world. For the construction of highways, China has been in a sustainable and rapid development stage since 1998, and the highway mileage grew almost 4000 km on average for each year. In 2010, the mileage of highways reached 65 100 km, second in the world only behind the United States. In terms of air transportation, China had 175 civil aviation airports in 2010, 71 of which had a high grade above 4D, an increase of 42 since 1990. China's air transportation has formed a network covering major cities with hubs in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou/Shenzhen, and has been one of the largest air transportation capacities in the world. Compared with other countries, the total mileage of China's transportation routes has exceeded that of most of the world. Its railway mileage ranks first in Asia and third in the world, only behind the United States and Russia (Table 1). In addition, both the electrified and double-track ratios of railway are also first in Asia. The road mileage is second in the world, only behind the United States, and the highway mileage is also second, equaling the sum of the 27 EU countries. Additionally, six ports' container throughputs are ranked in the world's top ten, air passenger volume ranks second, and pipeline mileage is in the top five globally. 2.2 Enhancing quality: An increasingly optimized transportation structure From the founding of the People's Republic of China to the reform and opening up, China's transportation mainly used railways and waterways. During this period, China's industrial base was quite weak, and the tertiary industry's development greatly lagged behind. Economic development at that time mainly focused on the production of primary products such as agriculture, coal, ore and other energy substances such as steel and oil. All such products have common characteristics: large volume, fixed transportation routes, and suitability for railway and waterway transportation. Before 1978, railway and waterway transportation in China occupied almost 90% of the whole freight turnover and 70% of passenger turnover (Gui, 1999). From 1978 to 1997, China's economy developed rapidly, particularly the secondary industry. Along with the acceleration of China's industrialization and urbanization process, the internal structure of the transportation system gradually became unreasonable. Therefore, the central government of China compiled a series of policies for adjusting the transportation structure. Under the guidance of these policies, China's road transportation developed rapidly, and the transportation structure was significantly changed (Zhu and Ma, 2009). Meanwhile, the road passenger transportation turnover accounted for 29.91% of the total passenger turnover in 1978, which increased to 55.11% in 1997. Correspondingly, the ratio of road freight turnover was also increased from 2.79% to 13.80%. During this period, China's air transportation also grew significantly. Air passenger turnover accounted for 7.72% of total passenger turnover, and air cargo broke the record of zero. Since 1998, China has paid more attention to infrastructure construction under the impact of the Asian financial crisis, and all transportation modes have grown to different degrees. Raw materials and finished products need to be moved easily and quickly within the context of modern economies of scale, so road and air transportation show more advantages than railway and water transportation. In this situation, China's transportation structure has gradually become more flexible. During this period, the proportion of rail and water passenger transportation decreased continuously, and the proportion of road transportation changed little. Conversely, the proportion of air transportation rose greatly. In cargo transportation, the proportion using railways continued to decline, but the proportion of road transportation continued to rise (Table 2). Table 1 International comparison of China s transportation network development in 2006 (10 3 km) Transportation network 27 EU countries United States Japan Russia China China d Road network 5000.0 6430.0 1197.0 755.0 3457.0 3860.0 Highway network 63.4 102.2 a 7.4 b 29.0 45.3 65.1 Railway network 215.9 229.0 c 27.6 85.5 77.1 85.5 Notes: a, datum of 2007; b, state road; c, datum of 2005; d, datum of 2009
JIN Fengjun et al. Transportation Development Transition in China 323 Table 2 Passenger and cargo turnover ratios of each transportation mode in different years (%) Year Railway Road Waterway Air Cargo Passenger Cargo Passenger Cargo Passenger Cargo Passenger 1949 80.0 84.4 1.3 5.2 18.7 9.1 1.3 1978 54.4 62.7 2.8 30.0 38.4 5.8 1.6 1997 34.6 35.7 13.8 55.1 50.1 1.5 0.1 7.7 2009 20.7 31.7 30.4 54.4 47.1 0.3 0.1 13.6 2.3 Improvement of efficacy: Continuously expanding service area With the construction and development since 1949, China has established a nationwide, integrated transportation network including high-speed railways, expressways, a coastal port system, and airports supporting a continuously expanding service area. If the service area is defined as being within one hour s travel time to the network, the railway facilities can serve over 60% of China (Fig. 3), and expressways can serve 45% of the territory (Fig. 4). The transportation infrastructure network has linked most of China s regions, has changed the traditional space-time relationship followed by socio-economic activities, and has played an unprecedented role in expanding living space, sharing resources, and optimizing living environments. With further expansion and growth, the infrastructure network will efficiently support the sustainable socio-economic development of China. In terms of connectivity, all of China's provincial capitals are connected by rapid transportation. Each enjoys railway, highway, and air connectivity, except Lhasa, which is not connected by highways. By analyzing the accessibility of Chinese railway, highway and airport, we can see that the connection rate by railway of prefecture-level administrative regions reached 90% in 2008 (Table 3). Meanwhile, nearly 60% of county-level administrative regions (some counties are merged) were connected by highway. The population within one hour of railways, highways, and airports (linear distance) (Wang et al., 2006) accounted for about 95%, 94%, and 60% of the whole country, respectively, and the corresponding GDP proportion was about 98%, 97% and 76%, respectively (Table 4). China's population is concentrated east of the Heihe Tengchong line (Hu Huanyong line), and the Fig. 3 Spatial service area of China s railway network in 2008
324 Chinese Geographical Science 2012 Vol. 22 No. 3 Fig. 4 Spatial service area of China s expressway network in 2008 Table 3 Administrative units accessible by railway, highway, and airport in China in 2008 Spatial level Transportation mode Accessible units Ratio (%) Provincial administrative region (31) Prefecture-level administrative region (332) Railway 31 100.0 Highway 30 96.8 Airport 31 100.0 Railway 301 90.7 Highway 292 88.0 Airport 150 44.5 County-level administrative region Railway 1369 59.0 (2322) Highway 1305 56.2 Note: Does not include Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Land Type Population Industry Table 4 Spatial service by major transportation modes in China in 2008 (%) Item Railway Highway Air 30 minute 1 hour 30 minute 1 hour 30 minute 1 hour Land area 47.45 62.09 33.46 45.85 15.72 35.19 Provincial capital 100.00 100.00 96.77 96.77 100.00 100.00 Prefecture-level city 80.00 81.82 78.18 80.00 29.82 49.45 County-level city 95.28 97.38 84.78 92.13 24.41 62.99 County 65.74 85.91 62.64 80.74 14.03 46.11 Total 72.7 87.48 68.41 82.73 18.73 49.98 Total population 83.87 95.63 83.55 93.82 28.15 60.25 Non-agricultural population 89.75 97.18 88.49 94.92 43.89 69.13 GDP 91.11 97.66 92.73 97.00 49.65 75.89 Primary industry 83.52 95.71 83.97 93.98 24.80 58.60 Secondary industry 92.41 97.98 94.61 97.65 50.97 77.36 Industry production 92.56 98.10 95.06 97.79 51.00 77.72 Notes: County includes counties, autonomous counties, banners, autonomous banners, special regions, forestry areas and other administrative units
JIN Fengjun et al. Transportation Development Transition in China 325 transportation network thus has a similar spatial distribution, meaning that the transportation supply and demand are basically spatially matched. Although China s economic growth has developed greatly in recent years, the basic spatial pattern has changed little. 3 Impact Factors of Transportation Development Transition 3.1 National management system and policy A unified transportation management system is an important measure for optimizing transportation structure and improving the efficiency of transportation resource allocation. A unified management system provides an institutional basis for the government to develop uniform laws, regulations, transportation planning, policies, technical standards, and business rules. For a long time, China s transportation management system was divided into several departments. This situation led to irrationally allocated transportation resources without the guidance of an integrated transportation system (Fan, 2006). Even so, the changes in transportation policies were founded in different historical periods. The regional transportation policies of the central government in different historical periods had a strong role in promoting and guiding transportation infrastructure development and profoundly impacted the scale of construction and layout direction of each transportation mode. During the early days of the People s Republic of China, the transportation capacity of the whole country was lacking, so national transportation policies were enacted to increase supply and meet the needs of industrial development. Expanding the facility of transportation infrastructure was the main objective in this period. The continuous expansion of transportation investment not only increased the scale of transportation infrastructure, but also put tremendous pressure on resources and the environment. With the improvement of transportation infrastructure networks and an increase in transportation supply capabilities, China s transportation and socioeconomic development has entered into a relatively stable stage in recent years. The focus of national transportation development policies turned to providing good transportation services for improving people's life quality. The concepts of sustainable transportation development and people-oriented development have been gradually formed and accepted. China s transportation development has been transferred from extensive growth to intensive growth by structural optimization and technological innovation. 3.2 Transportation structure Transportation structure is shaped by the competition and cooperation of all transportation modes in a certain period, and reflects the characteristics of traffic demand and the function and status of different transportation modes. Transportation structure mainly includes industry structure, regional structure, and investment structure. Industry structure reflects the allocation ratio of transportation resources in five modes: railway, highway, waterway, air, and pipeline. Regional structure reflects the ratio of transportation resources in each region. Investment structure reflects the investment ratio of fixed assets in each transportation sector. In fact, transportation development transition is the process of optimizing the allocation ratio of transportation resources and transportation investment in each transportation mode and region. In some ways, optimizing transportation structure is not only a way but also the purpose of transportation development transition. 3.3 Investment scale and efficiency The investments in transportation construction are mainly used to renovate and expand existing infrastructure and construct new infrastructure, which results in the scaled increase of transportation infrastructure, expansion of spatial coverage, and improvement of service capacity. Both the investment scale and efficiency of transportation construction determine the transportation development stage, which is directly related to transportation development transition. The major contradiction of transportation development determines the basic characteristics of transportation development transition, and also the evolution process, which is gradual with certain regularity and adapted with the transportation development stage. For a long time, the overall supply capacity of China's transportation infrastructure was lacking and could not meet the needs of rapid economic development. Transportation became a bottleneck constraining economic development. In order to change this, expanding investment in transportation construction became the primary solution in that period. With a continuous increase in transportation investment, the lack of transportation
326 Chinese Geographical Science 2012 Vol. 22 No. 3 supply had been alleviated effectively. China has now entered into a new stage, balanced supply and demand of transportation with prominent structural contradiction. However, it can not efficiently realize structural optimization and efficiency improvement by only relying on increased transportation investment. In order to achieve another transportation development transition, China needs to improve investment efficiency in the future. 3.4 Technological innovation Technological innovation is an important way to improve the productivity of total transportation input factors, and plays an important role in transportation development transition. Technological progress can promote labor productivity and capital-output efficiency in transportation with the same inputs (Fan, 2006), and thus accelerate the pace of a transition. In a global view, each development transition of transportation infrastructure is closely related with the progress of technology. For example, the rapid growth of information technologies in the 1980s caused the development of intelligent transportation; the progress of low-carbon transportation technology in the 1990s caused the appearance of green transportation; and the development of high-speed technology in China at the beginning of the 21st century led to large-scale construction of high-speed transportation infrastructure. As transportation development entered into a stage of structural optimization and service improvement, transportation supply capacity and service area had to shift from relying on increased transportation investment to technological innovation. The contribution rate of technological innovation to transportation development transition has been increased significantly. 4 Historical Evaluation of Transportation Development Transitions Based on the factors influencing transportation development transition in China and the different ways that transitions can take place, it can be divided into four types: policy transition, structural transition, efficiency transition, and technology transition. 4.1 Policy transition Transportation development transition in China caused by national and regional transportation policies can be divided into five stages. The first stage was from 1949 to 1965, when the central government compiled policies with focus placed on the inland development of heavy industry, which had huge impacts on transportation construction and layout. The focus of transportation construction in that stage was railway, mainly distributed inland. The ratio of railway mileage in the western China climbed from 5.7% in 1949 to 21.5% in 1965, and accordingly the ratio of roads rose from 28.6% to 33.1%. The second stage was the three-line area (the economically underdeveloped area in the western China except Xinjiang and Tibet) construction period (1965 1973), when China s economic development mainly focused in inland areas. In order to strengthen war preparedness, national industry and railway construction had been highly concentrated in the inland ( three-line ) areas, which have greatly improved the transportation conditions there. The mileage of railway west of the Beijing Guangzhou line rose from 3900 km in 1949 to 20 000 km in 1975. The third stage was from 1973 to 1980, when the national strategy began to shift from the three-line area to the eastern China. The guideline for transportation construction and investment structure changed significantly and the central government started to strengthen port and pipeline construction. In the latter half of the 1970s, waterway investment was increased by 12.8 times more than the first half of the 1970s, and pipeline investment was increased by 23 times that of the first half of the 1970s. The fourth stage, from 1980 to 1992, saw rapid development in the coastal areas of China. In this period, China implemented the policy of opening coastal areas to the outside world, and proposed special policies for accelerating the economic development of coastal areas. Correspondingly, the focus of transportation construction also shifted eastward, and coastal ports, rail and national highways became key projects. The fifth stage is from 1992 to the present, namely a period of coordinated regional economic development. In this period, China implemented an opening up policy across all dimensions. The focus of regional development policy was shifted from coastal areas to coordinated development in each region. Meanwhile, the government emphasized the construction of major inter-regional channels (such as the Beijing Kowloon line, the Nanning Kunming line, etc.). Transportation development in this period basically elimi-
JIN Fengjun et al. Transportation Development Transition in China 327 nated lag and entered an advanced development phase. 4.2 Structural transition Considering the evolution of transportation route mileage and transportation structure, China's transportation infrastructure has experienced three structural transitions. The first transition happened from 1949 to 1978, when the transportation structure was gradually changed and construction mainly concerned railways. The proportion of railway investment was more than 61% of the total. In addition, railway passenger transportation accounted for over 60% of the total passenger turnover, and railway cargo transportation accounted for more than 70% of the total cargo turnover. Accordingly, road transportation also developed rapidly during the 30 years, but its ratio in passenger and cargo transportation was still low. Although the proportion of waterway investment was low, its ratio in freight turnover was increased significantly. Air and pipeline lacked development during the period, and they only took a small proportion of transportation and investment. The second transition was from 1978 to 1997, namely structure coordination. With the rapid economic development of China in this period, transportation structure was changed significantly. The proportion of railway passenger and cargo turnover decreased to 35.7% and 34.6%, respectively, in 1997. The role of road transportation was strengthened, and road passenger turnover accounted for more than 50% of the total passenger turnover. Regarding waterways, coastal ports became key projects in construction, and the transportation turnover of waterways rose from 0.01% in 1979 to 0.08% in 1997. In addition, air and pipeline transportation also grew rapidly in this period. China's transportation structure had become more and more coordinated. The third transition, from 1997 to the present, is structural optimization. In this period, with the development of all transportation modes, China's transportation structure became more and more reasonable. Passenger and cargo turnover of railways continued to decline, and the passenger turnover of waterways also showed a downward trend. Conversely, the development of road, air and pipeline transportation showed an upward trend. In conclusion, China's transportation in this period gradually solved the lag problem and began to develop toward structural optimization. 4.3 Efficiency transition Efficiency transitions in transportation development have mainly been caused by the level of influence of transportation investment on economic development. By conducting self-regression analysis on transportation infrastructure investment and GDP growth, we get three stages of efficiency transition. The first stage was from 1949 to 1978, when China implemented a planned economy with slow development. The first stage is also the initial stage of China's transportation construction. The long-term elasticity of transportation investment to GDP was only 0.098 in this stage, which showed that the function of transportation investment in economic development was relatively weak, and the efficiency of transportation investment was not high. During this period, the capacity of transportation supply was behind the demand of economic development. The second stage was from 1978 to 1991, the early stage of China's reform and opening up. In this period, China's socioeconomy started to develop rapidly. The long-term elasticity of transportation investment to GDP rose to 0.231. The influence of transportation investment on economic development began to appear. Meanwhile, China's transportation construction was gradually adapted with economic development. Since 1991, China's reform and opening up have developed more deeply. The socioeconomy has entered into a path of rapid development, and the scale of investment in transportation construction increased rapidly. In this period, the influence of transportation investment on the economy became more prominent, and the long-term elasticity of transportation investment to GDP rose to 0.353. Compared with economic development, China's transportation construction began to turn from adapted development to advanced development. 4.4 Technology transition Since 1949, China's transportation has undergone technology transitions twice. First, 1949 1985 was the initial stage of transportation technology. During this period, China implemented self-development policies and introduced advanced technology from outside, significantly accelerating the technological improvement of transportation equipment. The double-track rate, electrification rate and automatic blocking mileage of railways increased substantially. Air traffic control, communication, and navigation facilities were also greatly im-
328 Chinese Geographical Science 2012 Vol. 22 No. 3 proved. China built a number of port berths with a high level of mechanization and automation (Li, 1996). Following this stage, from 1985 to 2000, China's transportation technology was in a rapid development stage, and with the promotion of information technology, it developed with unprecedented speed. Intelligent transportation and low carbon transportation were representative technologies in this period. China's transportation entered into an 'informatization' and 'sustainable development' stage. Since 2000, China's transportation technology has entered into a stage with characteristics of 'high-class' and 'high-speed'. During this period, China's high-speed technology has been developed rapidly. A fundamental high-speed transportation network consisting of highways, quasi-high-speed railways, high-speed railways, and an air network has been formed, which greatly improved the conditions for transportation and the environment for regional economic development. All transportation development stages of different types are shown in Fig. 5. 4.5 Comprehensive transition and stages Comprehensive transition of transportation infrastructure is the integration of the four kinds of transition mentioned above. Based on the above analysis of influential factors and transition types, we will consider the differences between dominant factors in different historical periods. As a result, the evolution of transportation infrastructure can be divided into five stages since 1949 and four development transitions. The first transition occurred in the middle of the 1960s and mainly reflected changes in the regional traffic structure. During this period, China's transportation construction mainly focused on 'third-line area' from inland areas, and resulted in the change of the regional transportation structure. However, the investment structure of transportation had no substantial change and was still mainly focused on railway construction. Unsurprisingly, the efficiency of investment was lower than that in the early days of the People's Republic of China because most railways constructed in that period were located in mountainous areas with a large ratio of bridges and tunnels and had high unit costs (Lu, 2003). In addition, technological development still focused on the technical reform of transportation equipment, but technological innovation in transportation had no real transition. The second transition occurred in the late 1970s, when the spatial distribution of transportation development saw its second change. The key areas of national transportation construction started to transfer from the 'third-line area' to the eastern coastal areas. Meanwhile, transportation structure had a major change in this period. China began to implement the policy of building an integrated transportation system in the 1980s, which significantly decreased the previously dominant role of railways in passenger and freight transportation, and strengthened the roles of roads and coastal and ocean transportation. In addition, the efficiency of transportation construction investment had a significant change. Compared with the previous period, the long-term elasticity of transportation investment to GDP increased by 136%. Technological improvements during this period still focused on the extension of traditional technologies, and no substantial transition occurred. The third transition occurred in the early 1990s with a third change in the spatial distribution of transportation development. China implemented a coordinated policy Fig. 5 Transportation development stages of different types
JIN Fengjun et al. Transportation Development Transition in China 329 for regional transportation development and the disparity of transportation construction among regions was reduced. In this period, the central government increased transportation investment and its ratio to GDP was amplified greatly, upgrading the investment efficiency of transportation construction for a second time. In this situation, the increasing speed of growth in total mileage of China's transportation routes had a significant change and the total scale of transportation entered into a new level. The situation of lacking transportation supply had been relieved. In addition, China's transportation technology entered a new stage and was transferred from traditional technology to informatization and low-carbon technology. The fourth transition occurred at the turn of the century, when China's transportation construction began to eliminate the lag problem and enter into an advanced development stage. During this period, the transportation structure changed again. Road and waterway transportation developed rapidly. Transportation structure became more and more reasonable, and developed towards optimization, comprehension and coordination. At the same time, the scale of transportation investment maintained a high growth rate, and the efficiency of investment remained high. Undoubtedly, transportation technology spurred the second innovation during this period. The technology of high-speed transportation developed rapidly, and highway, railway and air transportation underwent unprecedented development. China's transportation had entered into an era of highspeed development. Considering the track of transportation development transition, China's transportation transitions were mainly influenced by policy factors in the early stage, by structural and efficiency factors in the middle stage, and by technological factors in recent years (Table 5). That is to say, the influence of policy on transportation transitions was weakened gradually, and the influence of technology became more and more significant. In addition, the time for transportation transition was shortened from 16 years for the first to 8 years for the last, which to some extent explains why the contribution of technology to transportation development transition was stronger than the other factors. 5 Transportation Development Trends 5.1 Adjustment of traffic management system Currently, China's traffic management system can not be easily developed into an integrated transportation system, and can not give full play to the characteristics and advantages of each transportation mode under the concept of sustainable development. In other words, the current traffic management system in China is detrimental to the formation of an integrated transportation system. Accelerating the formation of a unified and coordinated traffic management system should be a priority in the '12th Five-Year Plan' period (2011 2015). Based on current development trends and requirements for coordinating development among all transportation modes, China urgently needs to speed up the reform of its traffic management system to incorporate resource efficiency. According to the experiences of domestic and international transportation development, a traffic management system with unified management is more conductive to constructing an integrated transportation system, improving the overall efficiency of transportation, and exploiting the combined advantages. 5.2 Construction of a resource-saving and integrated transportation system Construction of China's transportation infrastructure has transitioned from extensive growth to a stage of intensive optimization. The overall planning must be strengthened and a resource-saving, integrated transportation system must be built in the future. Through the construction and improvement of an integrated transportation system, the government can enhance the carrying capacity, security level and development environment of metropolitan areas and urban agglomeration areas, conduct coordinated development of urban and rural areas Table 5 Major transition modes of transportation development transition in China Period Policy transition Structural transition Efficiency transition Technology transition First transition Second transition Third transition Fourth transition
330 Chinese Geographical Science 2012 Vol. 22 No. 3 by reducing regional disparity, and reflect the theme of 'people-oriented' development. Meanwhile, the government should strengthen the overall planning of all transportation modes and absorb the idea of 'changing the growth mode' in the planning. According to the characteristics and advantages of each transportation mode, an integrated transportation system should be formed to improve the efficiency and service area of each transportation mode and the comprehensiveness of the transportation system. Additionally, it also needs to gradually adjust the scale of transportation investment and promote the coordination of transportation with other industries in order to establish a resource-saving, integrated transportation system. Before the 1990s, the ratio of transportation investment to GDP in China was less than 3%. Transportation construction was lagging behind and unable to meet the needs of socio-economic development. In the past 10 years, transportation investment has maintained double-digit growth. The ratio of transportation investment to GDP increased and maintained at 5% to 6% in recent years. Meanwhile, the ratio of transportation investment to total fixed social assets investment remained more than 10%, which promoted the rapid expansion of transportation infrastructure and the rapid advancement of technology (Fig. 6). During the next five years and in the future, the proportion of transportation investment to GDP in China should be controlled at 4% to 5%, and the proportion of total fixed social investment should be controlled at about 10%. 5.3 Structural optimization of transportation infrastructure Firstly, China needs to optimize its transportation structure based on developing rail transportation and promote the sustainable development of transportation in the future. Compared with other transportation modes, railways and waterways have obvious advantages in land occupation, energy consumption, transportation safety, and environmental protection, and they are very important for establishing a resource-saving transportation system. In recent years, China's roads, especially highways, have developed rapidly and their market share has also grown rapidly. Conversely, railway and waterway development lag behind. The transportation capacity of railway is very lacking and can not meet the needs of socio-economic development. Part of the passengers and freight that should be transported by railway in terms of economy are now forced to use roads, resulting in an unbalanced transportation structure in China. In the '12th Five-Year Plan' period, China's government should continue to invest in railways and waterways, and meanwhile lead social capital to invest in railways and waterways, which can accelerate their development and optimize the transportation structure. However, high-speed railway construction in recent years had a tendency to be carried out blindly and irrationally to some degree, which is now a concern of many scholars. In the future, China should rationally regulate the scale and spatial distribution of high-speed railway construction according to scientific standards. Secondly, China needs to gradually adjust the investment structure and promote the coordinated development of the transportation system. In the past ten years, China has paid great attention to the construction of highways, passenger railways, ports, etc. and has formed the skeleton of a high-speed transportation network, which has formed the basis for constructing a modern integrated transportation system. In order to promote the further development of transportation infrastructure and adapt to the requirements of building a moderately prosperous society, China's transportation Fig. 6 Evolution of ratio of transportation investment to GDP in China
JIN Fengjun et al. Transportation Development Transition in China 331 investment should make an adaptive change. First, in the '12th Five-Year Plan' period, transportation investment should change from solely focusing on construction, to including construction, operation and maintenance to guarantee the normal operation of a transportation system. Second, in order to improve the accessibility of universal services, China should increase investment in constructing rural roads and local railways. 5.4 Technological innovation of transportation To enhance service quality and catalyze development transitions, improved transportation efficiency and management through technological innovation are necessary. At present, China's transportation infrastructure construction has transitioned from relying on increased transportation investment to technological innovation. On the one hand, the future direction of transportation development is toward improved transportation efficiency through strengthening technological innovation, positive use of advanced, modern information and communication technology, and accelerating development and research of intelligent transportation systems. On the other hand, China needs to develop technologies, e.g., high-speed transportation, heavy-loading equipment, intermodal containers, and modern logistics, to improve transportation efficiency and reduce resource consumption. An inevitable future trend will be enhanced integration and innovation of information technology, modern transportation technology and logistics technology. Therefore, China needs to establish an efficient logistics system and spatial network to reduce the logistical costs of socio-economic activities. 5.5 Construction of an efficient transportation system in metropolitan areas Metropolitan areas will be the kernels of China's industrial and urban development in the next 20 years, the main engines for driving economic growth, and the key for China's participation in the international economy. The construction of transportation infrastructure in these areas is directly related to development efficiency, carrying capacity and environmental capacity of the whole country. Therefore, it is important for these areas to build a modern transportation infrastructure system and improve their ability to support development. The construction of transportation infrastructure systems in these areas will focus on the following aspects: (1) Integrated spatial planning. The main purpose of this aspect is to distribute the planned conventional railway, passenger railway, intercity rail, highway, energy and information lines in an appropriate corridor based on the main development axes in these areas with a 'cluster' and 'compact' spatial distribution pattern, and form an efficient infrastructure corridor. The goal is to reduce spatial segmentation, improve the efficiency of space utilization, and provide broad space for the development of other human activities. From the perspective of development trends, the focus is to strengthen the integrated spatial planning of the Jing-Jin-Ji (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) metropolitan region, the Changjiang (Yangtze) River Delta megalopolis, the Pearl (Zhujiang) River Delta megalopolis, Cheng-Yu (Chengdu-Chongqing) economic region, central and southern Liaoning, Shandong peninsula, and the Wuhan metropolitan area. (2) Constructing beltways. China should build an integrated and convenient transportation system and organization modes with beltways (ring roads) surrounding core cities to satisfy the exchange of passengers and freight between cities, the central city and suburbs, and urban and rural areas, and promote the spatial adjustment of industrial structure and utilization efficiency of land resources. The construction of beltways must obey two important principles: 1) convenience to commuters; and 2) proper division and coordination of labor. They should form one and two-hour commutes, respectively. (3) Sharing major infrastructures. With market principles, China should construct major infrastructure for regional sharing under the guidance of policy, such as regional logistics bases, airports, and sea ports. Additionally, China should build commuter transportation systems for mass transit between living places and working places as the main commuter mode in metropolitan areas. (4) Establishing an efficient transportation organization system. That is, planning and constructing a city-region's transportation system coordinately and forming an integrated transportation system. First, form a well-organized, efficient, coordinated transportation network to support the efficient utilization of space and reconstruction of spatial structures. Second, construct an efficient management system to ensure the operational performance of the system. Third, establish an effective, coordinated mechanism to form a perfect protection mechanism. The development strategies of transportation infrastructure in China's key urban economic zones are shown in Table 6.