Modern railway passenger station planning and design

Author: Chief Editor: Yu Wen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-06-01
Features:
Introduction This book is based on the concept of urban comprehensive transportation integration and introduces the functions, classification, and scale levels of modern railway passenger stations. It discusses the comprehensive planning and design principles and guiding ideology of railway passenger stations, as well as the tasks, procedures, and output requirements during the planning stage. It provides a detailed discussion on the overall layout of passenger facilities, site selection, classification and forecasting of passenger volume, passenger yards, passenger station building design, and the planning principles of the station square. It also addresses environmental protection issues at stations, identifies the main pollution sources, and proposes solutions for mitigation. The latter part introduces the design cases of newly built passenger stations in Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang North Station, Dandong, Shenzhen, and Wutai Mountain, providing references for readers.
Excerpt:
Chapter Comprehensive Transportation and Railway Passenger Transport
Section Overview of Transportation Industry
Transportation is an indispensable demand in human society, enabling changes in the locations of people and goods. With the development of social productivity, transportation tools have also undergone corresponding transformations. Humans have evolved from using physical and animal labor for transportation to utilizing various simple and even complex water, land, and air transportation tools. The emergence of modern transportation methods is a result of the development of social productivity.
I. The Nature of the Transportation Industry
The foundation of human society lies in engaging in various production activities. During production, there is inevitably a change in the location of production tools, labor objects, and laborers themselves, known as displacement. Without this displacement, all production activities would be impossible. Agriculture and industry are the two fundamental industries of human society, while transportation belongs to the tertiary industry. In 1985, the State Council approved the classification of China's industrial structure, which divides agriculture (including forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery) into the primary industry; industry and construction into the secondary industry; and transportation, as well as other sectors, into the tertiary industry. The tertiary industry can be divided into two major sectors: the circulation sector and the service sector. The circulation sector includes industries such as transportation and postal and telecommunications.
In summary, transportation is a necessary condition for the smooth progress of material production in agriculture, industry, and other sectors, forming an integral part of human society's material production and an indispensable component of the entire national economy production system. This is the nature of the transportation industry.
II. The Role and Position of Transportation in National Economic Development
Transportation is a crucial prerequisite and pillar for national economic and social development, as well as a necessary guarantee for national defense, holding significant strategic importance. One of its roles is that, whether it is rail, water, road, air, or pipeline transport, it is an indispensable part of all production processes and the material and cultural life of the broad masses of the people. Rail transport, in particular, is the main artery of the national economy, playing a pivotal role in national economic and social development.
Secondly, transportation is also an important sector of material production, involving all fields of production, circulation, consumption, and social life. It serves as a vital material foundation and link for economic connections between urban and rural areas, industry and agriculture, and various regions and industries.
Thirdly, transportation is also a leading industry in the national economy. The more advanced a society becomes, the more developed its national economy, the more dependent it is on a well-developed transportation system. Otherwise, the development of the national economy will face significant constraints. Historical experiences from the economic development of developed countries show that in the early stages of industrialization, they invested heavily and prioritized the development of transportation, creating an extensive transportation network to ensure rapid economic growth in the future. Without the leading development of transportation, economic growth would lack momentum.
China has a large population and is in the primary stage of socialism, with significant imbalances in resource allocation, territorial development, and economic development, making its demand for transportation even greater. Therefore, the current task is to build a comprehensive transportation system with coordinated development of rail, water, road, air, and pipeline transport, adapted to the needs of national economic development, to ensure and promote the realization of national economic development strategies by the end of the century.
Since the reform and opening-up, with the gradual development of the socialist market economy, the expansion of foreign economic and technological cooperation, a substantial increase in import and export trade, and the vigorous rise of the tourism industry, as well as the growing demands of the people for material and cultural life and a significant increase in commodity circulation volume, have all contributed to a new and more challenging situation for the transportation industry.
Under the new circumstances of reform and opening-up, the strategic importance of transportation has become even more prominent. For a long time, transportation in China has been a weak link in the national economy, severely restricting its development and failing to meet the needs of the economy. Currently, the situation is even more severe. Taking rail transport as an example, generally speaking, for every 1% increase in industrial output value, rail freight capacity must increase by 0.5%, with an adaptation ratio of 1:0.5, to better meet the needs of national economic development. However, since the "Six-Year Plan," the ratio of industrial output value growth to rail freight volume growth in China has been only 1:0.3. Additionally, for every 1% increase in national income, rail passenger capacity must grow by 0.72%, with an adaptation ratio of 1:0.72, but during the "Six-Year Plan," the actual growth rate of national income (excluding price inflation) to rail passenger volume was less than 1:0.5. Due to accumulated deficits in capacity over the years, rail transport not only failed to lead but lagged significantly behind. This is mainly manifested in: the improvement of major rail transportation technical equipment lagging far behind the growth in transportation volume; completing high-intensity transportation tasks with low-level equipment; the increasing contradiction between the weak structure of rail transport and high transportation intensity; and transportation equipment being overburdened, outdated, poorly maintained, and lacking opportunities for renewal.
Facing such a severe situation, we must attach great importance to the strategic role of transportation in national economic development.
III. Characteristics of the Transportation Industry
Transportation is an independent material production sector, and its transportation process shares common characteristics with material production. The labor of transportation workers not only creates value but also increases social wealth. However, transportation also has its own production characteristics.
1. During its production process, transportation processes the labor object not by creating any new material product but by changing the location of the object. Thus, the product of transportation is the change in the location of passengers and goods, with units of measurement being person-kilometer and ton-kilometer.
2. The product of transportation (the displacement of passengers and goods) cannot be stored or accumulated, as storage or accumulation would mean zero displacement, resulting in zero person-kilometers or ton-kilometers. Therefore, the allocation of transportation production capacity must be as coordinated as possible with the development of various sectors of the national economy and the demand for transportation from the people, presenting an "adaptation" trend.
Section Passenger Comprehensive Transportation
Transportation, based on the different objects of transportation, is divided into passenger transportation and freight transportation. Passenger transportation, due to the diversity of transportation tools, is also referred to as passenger comprehensive transportation.
(I) Types of Passenger Comprehensive Transportation
Currently, passenger comprehensive transportation in China includes the following four categories:
1. Railway passenger transportation (including central and local railways);
2. Highway passenger transportation;
3. Waterway passenger transportation;
4. Air passenger transportation.