Regional Impact of Urban Rail Transit Network Accessibility on Residential Property Price

Urban rail transit can increase property prices by increasing higher accessibility and more activity opportunities in catchment areas. However, the high cost of construction and operation has become an important factor hindering the development of urban rail transit, especially in developing countries. Reliable measure of residential property appreciation can provide suggestions for rail transit planning and policy-making of value capture to fund rail transit. Despite numerous studies on the value-added of housing price in catchment areas, there are few studies on the relationship between the value-added of housing price and accessibility. In this research, we aim to investigate whether there is a significant relationship between urban rail transit network accessibility and residential property appreciation around each station and how such a relationship varies over time. We employed a generalized-travel-cost-based accessibility measure to capture the residential property appreciation using residential property price data of 2014 in Shanghai. The results indicate that there is a positive correlation between the rail transit network accessibility and residential property appreciation. Both of the accessibility improvement and residential property appreciation are bigger in suburban areas and smaller in city-center areas. This method can provide reference for urban rail transit planning and transit-oriented development.