The Impacts of High-speed Rail on Sustainable Economic Development: Evidence from the Central Part of China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The aim of the paper is to give full play to the role of high-speed rail (HSR) in promoting sustainable and  coordinated economic development, however the paper does not address any sustainable economic development issues. First, authors should define what is sustainable economic development and what are indicators of sustainable economic development for China. However, the paper develops GEC model and assess the influence coefficients of various industries in the central region based on the China Inter-Regional Input-Output Table in 2007, which includes 17 industries in eight regions. Now is 2020, why this is impact on sustainable development? From what is written in this paper it is clear that paper is completely out of the scope of Sustainability, it mixes theoretical concepts. Literature review is not appropriate and not relevant.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer: Thank you very much for taking the time to make such wonderful suggestions for our paper. And, thank you so much for viewing our reply. We have tried my best to modify the paper according to your suggestions, and we have replied to your suggestions and questions in the attachment, hoping to get your approval. We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have. Best regards. Ms. Guo Ph.D. Candidate, Beijing Jiaotong University

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

It is a very interesting paper, but it needs to be improved explaining better the complete CGE model used and its assumptions. In addition, the way the impact of HSR is introduced needs more justification.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to make such wonderful suggestions for our paper. And, thank you so much for viewing our reply.

We have tried my best to modify the paper according to your suggestions, and we have replied to your suggestions and questions in the attachment, hoping to get your approval.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

    Best regards.

    Ms. Guo

    Ph.D. Candidate, Beijing Jiaotong University

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

• English must be revised (professional editing is required)
• Statement on line 42 must be corrected. "Compared with traditional means of transportation, such as cars, airplanes and ordinary railways, HSR has higher quality of service, faster speeds, higher safety, and
  greener environmental protection." Authors must acknowledge that 
  • Rothengatter (2011) finds evidence that fierce competition between air transport and HSR may occur on routes with distance up to 1000 km, mostly likely between 400 and 800 km. Steer Davies Gleave (SDG, 2004) concludes that the threat imposed by HSR on air travel is the strongest in countries with a large market for travel over distances of around 200-800 km, and particularly in the range 300-600 km. HSR offers little benefits for journeys shorter than 150-200 km, and it is currently not competitive towards air transport for journeys longer than approximately 800-1000 km. 
  • In fact, some empirical evidences show that the (per-seat) Local Air Pollution (LAP) and GHG emissions (or their economic impact) of airlines is higher than that those of HSR (Givoni, 2007; Janic, 2011). Nevertheless, the introduction of HSR services does not necessarily lead to overall environmental advantages (D’Alfonso et al., 2015; 2016). The net environmental effect can be negative since the introduction of the new transport mode often results in additional demand.

Rothengatter, W., 2011. Competition between airlines and high-speed rail. Critical Issues in Air Transport Economics and Business eds Macario, R., van de Voorde, E. Routledge, Oxford, England.

SDG (Steer Davies Gleave), 2004. High-speed Rail: International Comparisons. Final Report. prepared for: Commission for Integrated Transport. Roma, Italy

Givoni, M., 2007. Environmental benefits from mode substitution: comparison of the environmental impact from aircraft and high-speed train operations. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 1 (4), 209-230. 

Janic, M., 2011. Assessing some social and environmental effects of transforming an airport into a real multimodal transport node. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 16 (2), 137-149. 

D’Alfonso, T., Jiang, C., Bracaglia, V., 2015. Would competition between air transport and high-speed rail benefit environment and social welfare? Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 74, 118-137. 

D’Alfonso, T., Jiang, C., Bracaglia, V., 2016. Air transport and high-speed rail competition: Environmental implications and mitigation strategies. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 92, 261-276

• The contribution of the paper must be better specified in the Introduction and so the novel results compared with the previus literature
• Authors must explain why selected methodology and research design are appropriate compared to other methodologies, given research question

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to make such wonderful suggestions for our paper and provide references to us. And, thank you so much for viewing our reply.

We have tried my best to modify the paper according to your suggestions, and we have replied to your suggestions and questions in the attachment, hoping to get your approval.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

    Best regards.

    Ms. Guo

    Ph.D. Candidate, Beijing Jiaotong University

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper studies the role of high-speed rail (HSR) in promoting sustainable and coordinated economic development. The authors claim that they built a computable general equilibrium model to gain a comprehensive picture of the issue. In general, this is an interesting topic well worth studying, but I have some major concerns over the methodology and the writing.

1. The authors claim that they use a computable general equilibrium model for analysis. No proper definition is given to this method, let alone technical details. Judging from the term, it is a way to obtain "general equilibrium", which is likely unrealistic. Real general equilibrium is hard to obtain due to the complexity of the economic system. However, if what the authors come up with is not the real general equilibrium, they need to sharpen the discussion regarding the contribution of the paper and convince the readers why this paper is important.

2. One fact that makes me believe that the authors failed to obtain the real general equilibrium is that the paper does not take into account the market interactions between HSR and other transport modes. For example, air transport has been shown to be a very important substitute (see e.g., Yang and Zhang, 2012; Jiang and Zhang, 2016) as well as complement of HSR (see e.g., Jiang and Zhang, 2014; Jiang et al., 2017). More importantly, the interactions between these two transport modes would also affect the sustainable development of the economy (see e.g., D'Alfonso et al., 2015; 2016). It is unlikely to find out the real function of HSR in economic development without considering the substitutive and complementary effects of other transport modes.

3. The paper has a lot of writing problems. I suggest the authors to get professional proof-editing service to improve the writing. 

Reference

Yang, H., & Zhang, A. (2012). Effects of high-speed rail and air transport competition on prices, profits and welfare. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 46(10), 1322-1333.

Jiang, C., & Zhang, A. (2016). Airline network choice and market coverage under high-speed rail competition. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 92, 248-260.

Jiang, C., & Zhang, A. (2014). Effects of high-speed rail and airline cooperation under hub airport capacity constraint. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 60, 33-49.

Jiang, C., D'Alfonso, T., & Wan, Y. (2017). Air-rail cooperation: Partnership level, market structure and welfare implications. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 104, 461-482.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to make such wonderful suggestions for our paper and provide references to us. And, thank you so much for viewing our reply.

We have tried my best to modify the paper according to your suggestions, and we have replied to your suggestions and questions in the attachment, hoping to get your approval.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

    Best regards.

    Ms. Guo

    Ph.D. Candidate, Beijing Jiaotong University

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have revised their manuscript and have significantly improved the quality of manuscript. Especially introduction was improved. Other relevant issues were also addressed. The authors have also provided the comprehensive answers to reviewers comments. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer: Thank you very much for taking the time to read our reply. And, thanks so much for your approval of our revision. We have done some further improvement to the introduction. Firstly, we have complemented the importance of sustainable economic development to society and economy (line 53-line 70). Secondly, we introduced the development of sustainable economic development and HSR in China separately, and we emphasized the role of HSR in promoting the sustainable economic development of China (line 106-line 124). Thirdly, we further explain the purpose of the paper (line 153-line 169). At last, we supplemented the contribution of the paper (line 170-line 185). We deeply appreciate all your comments. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. Best regards, Yours sincerely, Ms. Beibei Guo Ph.D. Candidate, Beijing Jiaotong University

Reviewer 2 Report

Paper has been sufficiently improved. Only minor changes in graphs (very unclear) are necessary (maybe they should be changed using another chart type).

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:
Thank you very much for taking the time to read our reply. And, thanks so much for your approval of our revision.
According to your suggestion, we have changed the chart type of graphs so that they could show the results more clearly. Moreover, we will submit the graphs to the editorial office as a separate attachment.
We deeply appreciate all your comments. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Best regards,
Yours sincerely,

Ms. Beibei Guo
Ph.D. Candidate, Beijing Jiaotong University

Reviewer 4 Report

It seems that the line numbers in the revision have been messed up. I was not able to match line numbers mentioned in the responses with those in the revision. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to read our reply. And, we are so sorry for the confusion caused by the line numbers.

The line numbers we marked is based on the paper with using the "Track Changes" function in Microsoft Word. We carefully checked the line numbers, and then re-marked the line numbers in the response to comments of round 1 in the attachment. According to your suggestions, we have tried our best to improve the introduction, the description of methods, the presentation of results, and conclusions. We hope that the revisions will meet with your approval.

We deeply appreciate all your comments. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Best regards,

Yours sincerely,

 

Ms. Beibei Guo

Ph.D. Candidate, Beijing Jiaotong University

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

Thanks for the repsonse.