Uncovering Urban Dynamic Mobility Patterns Influenced by the Socio-technical Impacts of High Speed Rail Investments

High speed rail (HSR) systems act as a prominent role in society that provokes extensive socio-economic and socio-technical dynamics and then stimulates fundamental enablers of economic growth by its connectivity and mobility. In this study, we perform a socio-technical review of international case studies in terms of economic growth, urban mobility and land uses. The emphasis of analyses is placed on unlocking the key to answer a recurring question whether HSR could actually enable economic regeneration over the long term. Positive socio-economic impacts of HSR on urban dynamics and mobility patterns can be observed from the evaluation of property pricing and land uses from a number of case studies derived from Japan, China, France and Germany. These influenced by the increase of employment, property demands and the effect of agglomeration economics (i.e. improved coordination of urban planning and supporting infrastructure systems) within specified regions. In fact, our findings indicate that such the positive effects are not only a result from HSR services, but also the contribution from the cooperation with city redevelopment strategy and regional accessibility. In particular, in a region experienced unfavourable economic condition, there is no rapidly increase in the city economic activities or even larger recession could occur with the operation of HSR devices due to the free but competitive diffusion effect.