主题：关于中国的高铁网 -- mandman

看了一下《华盛顿邮报》关于中国高铁网的报道和后面读者的评论，发现不少人有意无意把中国的高铁网和美国五十年代起建的州际高速公路网相比，从力度上，国家的投资规模上，和对整个国民经济的影响上。

其实，中国也有自己的高速公路网，但这只是模仿，而没有创新。高速公路效率不高，依赖汽车，电动汽车还没有成气候，汽车的行驶速度有限，等等。

中国的高速铁路网才是一场真正的革命，我觉得它会和美国的州际高速公路网一样，颠覆中国人对整个国家的认识。客运上，一千公里之内，三四个小时直达，当天往返不成问题。货运上，被客货混运限制的运力得到极大的解放，物流成本会显著降低，一个真正统一的大市场最终将出现。而这个运输系统却不依赖石油，不仅环保，而且大大降低了中国和美国由于争夺石油资源而矛盾激化的可能性。

《华盛顿邮报》：China is pulling ahead in worldwide race for high-speed rail transportation

上个月美国的航空专业期刊《Aviation Week & Space Technology》刊载了题为《Run Over by a Train》的文章，分析了中国的航空业将面临来自高铁的严重冲击，这种冲击现在被低估了。明年京沪高铁通车后，将和中国的第一黄金航线形成面对面的竞争，那时候就可以一见分晓了。

文中也提到，2020版的高铁网对中国人口密集地区的完全覆盖，中国航空业的远景并不美妙。（当然，这对中国人民来说，可是一件大好事啊！）

中国人口密度－高铁网复合图

（未名网友desesperado友情提供）

Run Over by a Train

Aviation Week & Space Technology

April 19, 2010

BYLINE: Bradley Perrett

SECTION: Air Transport; Pg. 47 Vol. 172 No. 15

Bradley Perrett/Beijing

A battle between China Southern Airlines and a fast rail line will help reveal how badly high-speed trains will undercut Chinese carriers over the coming decade.

The airlines are at least facing a few years of stunted growth as the railways ministry progressively commissions the world’s largest high-speed rail system, on which it will run the world’s fastest long-distance trains.

The severity of the damage should become more apparent from the first major clash between Chinese airliners and 350-kph. (220-mph.) trains, now raging along the line between two of the country’s largest cities, Guangzhou and Wuhan.

The competition on the Guangzhou-Wuhan route is the acid test, says K. Ajith, airlines analyst at brokerage UOB Kay Hian.

If China Southern can maintain a sizable business on the route, then the future may not be so bad for the airlines. If the trains force it to reduce its flights to a token service or even quit the route, then prospects in other major markets will be bleak.

In the longer term, there is another threat to Chinese airlines: motorization. Unlike the U.S.—where automobile ownership was common before the Boeing 707 introduced fast, comfortable and economic air travel in 1958—China has built a strong aviation industry before the masses have had the money to fully exploit the country’s growing motorway system. Chinese airlines are not yet facing much competition from the idea of simply packing bags in the car and hitting the road.

The threat from the railways is obvious from a glance at a map of the new high-speed system superimposed on China’s population densities (see map).

The lines not only join tens of important city pairs with straight runs; in many cases, intersecting lines create practical connections between major cities with only moderately indirect routes. Not shown on the map is the old network, which is always being upgraded and will connect with the new one.

Altogether, the railways ministry proposes that its high-speed network will serve 90% of Chinese people.

The network is already affecting the airlines. In April 2009, fast rail lines opened between Shanghai and Wuhan and between Beijing and Taiyuan. China Southern says its traffic dropped 30% on the former route and 60% on the latter. And neither line is running China’s fastest trains.

Construction of the high-speed rail network hardly means the death of the Chinese airline industry. The trains will not conveniently connect every city pair, they will lose competitiveness as travel distance rises, and the air carriers can fight back by improving their efficiency. Moreover, China’s rapid economic growth means that the transport pie is expanding.

But it is clear that many short routes will be lost to the airlines altogether, while some services longer than an hour will at least suffer ferocious competition from a transport mode that offers few of the hassles of air travel and much greater reliability. In many cases, the competition is appearing where it will hurt most: The railways ministry naturally focused on the choicest travel markets as it drew up plans for its network, which is due for completion in 2020.

High-speed rail is often reckoned to compete with, or simply defeat, airlines over distances of up to 800 km., although the exact threshold distance depends on the speed.

Many of the old Chinese lines have been upgraded to handle 200-kph. trains. In the new network, some lines run at 200-250 kph. and can be upgraded to 300 kph., making them comparable with such systems in Europe and Japan.

But most of the new Chinese lines will from the beginning offer speeds of up to 350 kph., faster than any elsewhere. And a 380-kph. train is under development for the 1,318-km. Beijing-Shanghai line now under construction, threatening the premier air route in China with a 4-hr. rail service.

Because China’s trains are so fast, they should be competitive over greater distances than are those that have expelled European and Japanese airlines from major routes. China Southern expects air routes as long as 1,200 km. to suffer from fast-rail competition. That includes Beijing-Shanghai, whose straight-line distance is 1,070 km.

The process of air-route elimination has begun in China. A high-speed rail line opened between Xi’an (pop. 7.4 million) and Zhengzhou (3.2 million) on Feb. 6. On March 25, an airliner flew the route for the last time.

That was only a skirmish, however, because the air traffic was not great and the short distance, 440 km., favored the railway.

The first fast-rail assault on a major Chinese air route has been underway since Dec. 26, when the first section of the main north-south line opened, connecting Guangzhou (pop. 12 million) with Wuhan (9 million) 840 km. away in 3 hr. The distance, near the usual threshold for rail-air competition, means that defeat for the airline would imply great challenges in defending other major routes.

China Southern prepared for battle before the trains began running by introducing express check-in for the route and increasing its flights to 16 daily from 12, against the 21 daily trains each with 1,100-1,200 seats. Its traffic fell anyway and so did the fares.

The airline is now offering six daily flights on the route, suggesting a 50% loss of business, but analyst Ajith suggests that the route should be watched for longer to assess the final damage. So far, it can at least be said that China Southern has not had to surrender the service, which also feeds international flights from its Guangzhou Baiyun hub.

China Southern Chairman Si Xianmin says the airline must respond to the rail threat by increasing international services to 30% of its operations from the current 17%.

Based in Beijing and Shanghai, respectively, Air China and China Eastern Airlines have not yet had to deal with trains charging out of their home towns toward important markets at 350 kph. But the railways ministry’s contractors are working on it.

Ajith expects airline growth to slump as the fast lines are opened between now and 2020. For example, he sees just 4.8% growth in air traffic for 2012, compared with rates near 15% before theglobal economic downturn began in 2008.

If the fast-rail system does not grow further after 2020—a big if—then the airlines should settle down to a constant share of the long-distance market and grow at the same rate, something like the rate of economic growth, perhaps 7%, Ajith says.

There is another risk, he adds. There have been complaints from Chinese people that the train fares are too high. If they are reduced, then the trains will be even more competitive.

The train fares could fall because, as the airlines’ supporters point out, the fast-rail system seems to be uneconomic. Making early profits is evidently not part of the railways ministry’s thinking.

The Guangzhou-Wuhan line would have to carry 5 million passengers a year, about a quarter of the cities’ combined population, just to cover its construction cost at only 3% interest, calculates Wang Xiangsui, director of the strategic research center at the Beijing Aviation and Aeronautics University. The cost-effectiveness and investment return is still questionable, he told the China Commercial Aircraft conference in Shanghai on March 25.

One justification for the implicit subsidy is that fast trains emit far less carbon dioxide than aircraft—about a tenth per passenger-kilometer according to British government calculations. Global warming is not a hot topic in China, but it is likely to become a more serious policy issue over the coming decade—maybe just in time for the railways ministry to suggest further expansion of its high-speed network.

Depending on the topography, the current plan leaves opportunities for later, straighter lines between big city pairs, including Beijing-Shang

中国将再次成为人类文明文化中心。

普通铁路技术源于19世纪三四十年代英国，但光大于南北内战前后的美国，促使美国在1894年超越英国成为世界第一大工业国；

高铁技术源于20世纪六七十年代的欧洲日本，但光大于21世纪初的中国，将保证中国在2020-2030年间超越美国成为世界第一大工业国；

又一个历史的轮回而已。

construction cost at only 3% interest

这个值不会随通涨而涨；那么过十年，相对而言，这个 construction cost 只有原来的2/3，如果每年的通涨率是 3％－4％。

还高铁的债，应该把货运的收益也算进去。高铁主要承担客运，老铁路线主要跑货运。没有人规定：只能用高铁线上的收益来还高铁的贷款。因为建了高铁，原来的老铁路线释放了很多运载量，使得货运的收益可以大大提高。

［注］我不是说通涨一定是好事，只是解释一下，计算债务不能算死帐。哪能象前30年那样，什么价都30年不变？！

就是减弱美国欧洲民航制造业的优势，给自己的大飞机争取时间。

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你贴的地图吧 阿克赛钦 藏南 卖给外国鸟！

中国油料严重依赖进口，因此高速看着红红火火，可人家一掐脖子就完蛋。而高铁用电，意味着煤炭、核能、太阳能等多样化的能源供给方案，更具有鲁棒性。