Development history and accessibility evolution of land transportation network in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region over the past century

• Published in: Journal of geographical sciences 2018-10, Vol.28 (10), p.1500-1518
• Main Authors: Chen, Yu, Jin, Fengjun, Lu, Yuqi, Chen, Zhuo, Yang, Yu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Area planning & development; Cities; Developmental stages; Earth and Environmental Science; Geographical Information Systems/Cartography; Geography; High speed rail; History; Nature Conservation; Physical Geography; Regions; Remote Sensing/Photogrammetry; Roads & highways; Science; Transportation; Transportation planning
• ISSN: 1009-637X; 1861-9568
• DOI: 10.1007/s11442-018-1558-x

From the development of modern transportation to the current era of high-speed transportation networks, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region has always played a national leading role in land transportation development of China. In order to explore the long-term evolutionary characteristics of land transportation in the BTH region, this paper utilized a temporal scale of 100 years to systematically interpret the development process of the land transportation network. Taking 13 cities within the BTH region as research anchor cities, we took into account “leaping” mode of transportation in order to investigate the evolution of accessibility. Our research shows the following results: (1) The land transportation network in the BTH region has undergone five stages of development: the initial period of modernization (1881–1937); the period of stagnation of transportation development (1937–1949); the network expansion period (1949–1980); the period of trunk construction (1980–1995), and the period of high-speed transportation network development (1995–present). The network structure centered around Beijing has existed from the outset of modern transportation development. (2) The accessibility spatial pattern of land transportation in BTH region has evolved from expansion along traffic corridors to the formation of concentric circles. The stratified circular structure of transportation in anchor cities has gradually developed into a contiguous development pattern. (3) There are clear hierarchical differences in the transportation structures of anchor cities. Beijing has always been at the top of this hierarchy, while the hierarchical position of Zhangjiakou has fallen noticeably since 1949. The Beijing-Tianjin region was the first region to form a short-duration transportation circle structure, while the transportation advantages of the central part of Hebei Province, which is located in the center of the BTH transportation region, have yet to be realized.