Indexed by:Journal paper

Correspondence Author:沈淑琳

Journal:Travel Behaviour and Society

Included Journals:SSCI

Discipline:Economics

First-Level Discipline:Applied Economics

Document Type:J

Issue:30

Page Number:1-10

ISSN No.:2214-367X

Key Words:High-speed rails；Covid-19；Pandemic；Transportation infrastructure

DOI number:10.1016/j.tbs.2022.08.001

Date of Publication:2022-08-10

Impact Factor:5.85

Abstract:High-speed railways (HSRs) greatly decrease transportation costs and facilitate the movement of goods, services, and passengers across cities. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, however, HSRs may contribute to the cross-regional spread of the new coronavirus. This paper evaluates the role of HSRs in spreading Covid-19 from Wuhan to other Chinese cities. We use train frequencies in 1971 and 1990 as instrumental variables. Empirical results from gravity models demonstrate that one more HSR train originating from Wuhan each day before the Wuhan lockdown increases the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases in a city by about 10 percent. The empirical analysis suggests that other transportation modes, including normal-speed trains and airline flights, also contribute to the spread of Covid-19, but their effects are smaller than the effect of HSRs. This paper’s findings indicate that transportation infrastructures, especially HSR trains originating from a city where a pandemic broke out, can be important factors promoting the spread of an infectious disease.

Links to published journals:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2022.08.001