On September 21, 2022, from 19:00 to 21:00 Beijing time, the fifth and sixth special lectures of the 2022 Transportation Series were successfully held by the Transportation Research Institute of the University of Leeds and Beijing Jiaotong University. The fifth special lecture was presented by Professor Andrew Smith from the Institute of Transportation at the University of Leeds, with the title "A Synopsis of the Impacts of International Rail Reforms: Lessons Learned and Directions for Future Research". Professors Wu Jianhong and Li Hongchang from Beijing Jiaotong University were invited to comment. The sixth special lecture was presented by Professor Daniel Johnson from the Institute of Transportation at the University of Leeds, with the title "Land Value, Transport and Accessibility - A Commercial Property Model for Northern England". Professor Yang Hangjun from the University of International Business and Economics and Associate Professor Zhou Huiyu from Beijing Jiaotong University were invited to comment. The two lectures in this issue were hosted by Professor Lv Ying from the School of Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, who also served as the moderator. They were broadcast live through Zoom online conferences, continuing to build academic dialogue bridges for Chinese and foreign transportation scholars. 

Beijing Jiaotong University - Institute of Transportation, University of Leeds, UK

The fifth and sixth lectures of the 2022 Transportation Series will be held

Professor Andrew Smith, the guest speaker of the fifth special lecture, is a researcher at the Institute of Transportation at the University of Leeds, leading research on railway themes. His research mainly focuses on four aspects: railway infrastructure access pricing and marginal cost research; the impact of international railway reform and regulatory practices on economic efficiency; cost and efficiency modeling, especially railway transportation modeling, while also focusing on research on other transportation modes such as airports, highways, public transportation, and public resources such as water and energy; modeling the Economic Impact of Railway Technology Innovation. Professor Andrew Smith is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Italian Transport Regulatory Authority and the Executive Committee of the International Association for Transport Economics (ITEA), and also serves as the editor of the magazine 'Transport Economics and Policy'.

Professor Andrew Smith shared the latest research on international railway reform in this lecture. Firstly, Professor Andrew Smith introduced the reform models of railway and network industries around the world over the past 30 years, including horizontal separation methods under the new regulatory system, varying degrees of vertical separation methods, and partial privatization methods. These reforms all attempted to introduce various forms of competition in the field of passenger and freight services. In the reform of European railways, the European Commission regards within mode competition as the key to the future success and development of railways. Secondly, Professor Andrew Smith explained how vertical separation reform affects costs and efficiency. He pointed out that the conclusions of relevant studies are not entirely consistent, but recent studies have found that railways with vertical separation structures may be more effective in implementing investment and minimizing overall system costs compared to railways with integrated structures. Once again, he analyzed the role and role of economic regulators in reform. Strong regulation can help overcome the coordination or imbalance challenges of independent integrated systems, but it is difficult to efficiently play a role in more integrated systems. He pointed out that regulatory agencies can play a greater role in efficiency analysis within the EU and participate more in the design of reforms; Reducing costs and improving efficiency in the railway industry through an acceptable cost conversion model remains the main challenge and goal of EU railways, with independent regulatory agencies being key participants in this process. Next, Professor Andrew Smith discussed whether within-mode competition is an effective means of reform. Some studies have found that competition between freight and passenger transportation increases costs, thereby reducing the efficiency of the railway industry; while other studies have found that competition increases productivity, but vertical separation reform reduces productivity. He pointed out that a large amount of literature has shown that competitive bidding methods typically significantly reduce government subsidies and train operating costs. Finally, Professor Andrew Smith summarized the main points and provided an outlook. He believes that both horizontal and vertical separation reform methods can reduce costs, while economic regulation can help independent integrated systems solve coordination or imbalance difficulties. He noted that the means of railway reform need to be carefully designed, and existing reform methods can be used for reference, but they may not be fully applicable to a country's railway industry. Professor Andrew Smith hopes to have better datasets for empirical research in the future, to conduct more research on panel data, and to strengthen the connection between quantitative and qualitative research. 

Professor Andrew Smith from the Institute of Transportation at the University of Leeds shares the latest research findings

Professors Wu Jianhong and Li Hongchang from Beijing Jiaotong University, as the guest reviewers of the fifth special lecture, provided in-depth comments on Professor Andrew Smith's academic report. Professor Wu Jianhong focused on discussing the monopolistic characteristics of China's railway industry with Professor Andrew Smith, hoping to have better data for empirical research in the future. The engaging discussion sparked great interest among the attending scholars, and Professor Zhao Jian from Beijing Jiaotong University promptly joined in to further explore with Professor Andrew Smith the feasibility of vertical separation structures in China and the role of government regulation.

Highlights of Professor Wu Jianhong from Beijing Jiaotong University

Professor Li Hongchang noted that under the reform theme of railways and network industries, existing research has shortcomings such as conflicting basic theories and empirical results, and the overall impact of reform measures is still difficult to define. He conducted empirical research on existing railway reforms and efficiency, and further discussed with Professor Andrew Smith how railway cross subsidies and integration affect financial sustainability and whether regulatory independence has a significant impact on railway performance. Finally, he pointed out that the competitive model of multimodal transportation may reduce the monopoly power of railways and make the horizontal separation of specific railway businesses less attractive.

Highlights of Professor Li Hongchang from Beijing Jiaotong University

In the fifth lecture, Professor Andrew Smith closely focused on the theme of "A Synopsis of the Impacts of International Rail Reforms: Lessons Learned and Directions for Future Research", exploring the means and experiences of international railway reform. He summarized the conclusions of empirical research on this topic and further looked forward to future research space, providing participants with a comprehensive understanding of railway reform from a multidimensional research perspective and profound insights. Two specially invited reviewers, Professor Wu Jianhong and Li Hongchang, have been deeply involved in the research of China's railway reform for many years. They have actively explored the application of relevant reform methods in China and provided suggestions on data acquisition, screening, and processing in the empirical research process, which has inspired participants to think and discuss more detailed transportation system issues, including railway reform.

Following Professor Andrew Smith's excellent speech, there was the sixth special lecture, where the guest speaker, Associate Professor Daniel Johnson, shared the latest research on transportation and land value enhancement. Associate Professor Daniel Johnson joined the Institute of Transportation at the University of Leeds in 2001. His research interests include the connection between transportation and broader economic issues, the evaluation of travel attribute values, factors affecting freight and public transportation demand, and the analysis of the impact of railway competition and the value of network scarcity. Associate Professor Daniel Johnson has extensive experience in managing research projects and has served as an academic leader and manager for multiple projects, including at the UK Department of Transport. He has also worked on various EU projects and served as the Coordinator for the SMaRTE project. He has extensive experience in analyzing large transportation datasets and is responsible for teaching courses related to broad economic issues, public transportation, and freight transportation. 

In this lecture, Associate Professor Daniel Johnson mainly introduced the cross-sectional hedonic price housing model in the northern transport region of the UK, the quasi-natural experiment (panel data) model of the Manchester metro network, and the cross-sectional hedonic price commercial real estate model. Associate Professor Daniel Johnson mainly analyzed the definition of land value enhancement, the feature price model and quasi natural experimental research methods for modeling and analyzing land value enhancement, the scale of the impact of railways on land value, and the sources of variables for land value enhancement when explaining the cross departmental feature price housing model. When talking about the quasi-natural experiment (panel data) model of Manchester metro network, Associate Professor Daniel Johnson first introduced his motivation to use the Manchester metro network for quasi-natural experiment research, and showed the distribution and opening time of the metro network. Later, he used the double difference model to analyze the impact of the opening of the subway station on the average house price in the adjacent area. He found that the opening of the Manchester subway station increased the average real estate price in the adjacent area by 6.3%. After introducing the literature review on the commercial real estate model, Associate Professor Daniel Johnson gradually presented the estimation methods, measurement methods of commercial accessibility, other explanatory variables, and research conclusions of the model.

Associate Professor Daniel Johnson from the Institute of Transportation at the University of Leeds shares the latest research findings

Professor Yang Hangjun from the University of International Business and Economics and Associate Professor Zhou Huiyu from Beijing Jiao Tong University, as the guest reviewers of the sixth special lecture, provided precise comments on Associate Professor Daniel Johnson's academic report. Professor Yang Hangjun believes that Associate Professor Daniel Johnson's usage of rich and detailed datasets and double difference methods provides strong evidence for the impact of subway accessibility on housing prices. His research findings also have strong reference significance for the development of subways in China. At the same time, Professor Yang Hangjun also pointed out that despite the use of panel data and fixed effects methods, the endogeneity problem of the feature price model has not been fully solved. Therefore, a resale price model can be considered for analysis; If the virtual variables of subway opening can be replaced with accessibility changes at the same time, and the nonlinear influence of accessibility is introduced, the research results will be more accurate. Professor Yang Hangjun also had an discussion with Associate Professor Daniel Johnson on the research model setting and analysis framework of commercial real estate analysis.

Highlights of Professor Yang Hangjun from the University of International Business and Economics

Associate Professor Zhou Huiyu believes that Daniel Johnson's three studies have detailed data and a solid research foundation, providing a good empirical basis for improving land value. Associate Professor Zhou Huiyu pointed out that Associate Professor Daniel Johnson conducted targeted feature analysis on the value enhancement of commercial real estate, including accessibility analysis for different modes of travel, with a unique perspective and important reference value and significance. In addition, Associate Professor Zhou Huiyu discussed with Associate Professor Daniel Johnson on model settings, subway network connectivity, and possible siphon effects during subway opening.

Outstanding comments by Associate Professor Zhou Huiyu of Beijing Jiaotong University

In the sixth lecture, Associate Professor Daniel Johnson closely focused on the theme of "Transport and Land Value Uplift" and took the Manchester subway network as the realistic background to show how an increase in subway accessibility affects the value of residential and commercial real estate, and analyzed the internal relationship between transportation development and the economic field in simple terms. The diverse discussions conducted by two invited reviewers, Professor Yang Hangjun and Professor Zhou Huiyu, on the implications and applicability of research conclusions, variables, and data processing also opened up useful insights for conducting subsequent research and propose policy recommendations.

The fifth and sixth special lectures of the 2022 Transportation Series have inherited the academic discussion style and depth of academic dialogue from previous special lectures, providing exciting ideas, rigorous research paradigms, beneficial research results, and profound insights for Chinese and foreign scholars, researchers, and university teachers and students attending.