Research on spatial planning evaluation of Beijing Shanghai high speed railway station based on node-place model

Abstract

The construction of high-speed rails is regarded as a major opportunity for urban development by local governments in China, so various grand development plans are actively formulated to promote urban economic development. In this paper, the development of station space is evaluated empirically based on the calculated node and place values of 24 high-speed rail stations along the Beijing-Shanghai line and Bertolini’s “node-place” model. The results show that: (1) The 24 stations along the Beijing-Shanghai line have different development scale, which mostly act as sub-centers of the city, where the real estate industry, modern service industry and cultural industry are dominated in station space planning. Moreover, local governments are optimistic about the accelerant effect of high-speed rail stations whose functional configuration along the line is relatively repeated, because all 24 stations are basically set with business centers. (2) The size of cities along the Beijing-Shanghai line is related to the node value, the higher the urban function level, the greater the node value, with great differences among cities. The node value of big cities is far higher than that of small and medium-sized cities, hence there are node-oriented station areas in big cities and place-oriented ones in middle-sized and small cities. However, there is no direct relationship between the urban function level of stations along the line and the value of urban places. In some small and medium-sized cities, the planning and development intensity and scale of station areas even exceed that of big cities. (3) Only Wuxi station and Nanjing station are in a balanced development state in the space planning of railway stations along the Beijing-Shanghai line. Therefore, the risk of long-term development of station area should be considered in the planning, and reasonable measures should be formulated to promote the sustainable development of station area, so as to form the overall development of Station City.