Research On Cost And Benefit Of High-Speed-Railway In China

As a developing traffic facility which gets the goverment’s substantial support, High speed railway is the product of the economic development which is adapt to the product forces. In the rapid development of high speed railway, high cost becomes inevitable problem. Compared with ordinary railway, high speed railway has its own features, such as huge investment, difficult technology and longer period of investment return. Therefore, from the view of sustainable development, we must identify the cost and benefit of high speed railway, balancing the-cost and benefit, handling the relationship between them.From the experience of Japanese and European high-speed railway, we know that at the initial Period losses are inevitable. Beeause the construction cost is high. But we should see that, after the dark Period, all of them have gone to the path of Profitability. The development of Chinese high-speed railway is at the early period. From the view of financial point, its benefit is difficult to make up for the cost of inputs. But people are often overlooked some social externality benefits, for example, to stimulate the economy along, reduce environmental pollution and noise pollution. From the view of cost point, people always ignore the social externalities caused by construction costs. And these costs cannot be financially. So, Studying high-speed rail costs and benefits problem only from a financial perspective can not make the correct conclusion.This article discusses the cost and benefit problems of high speed railway, it’s no longer only from the financial aspect, but fully considers the costs and benefits caused by high-speed railway, especially analyses the costs and benefits that difficult to be caculated directly. According to the characteristics and the present situation of the high-speed railway, the article using the method of cost-benefit mainly studies the HRS’s construction cost, technical cost, safety cost, environmental cost, and the influence of the cost to benefits. The research has an important significance to realize the sustainable development of high-speed rail.