Trading off public values in High-Speed Rail development in China

Theory on how different public values are prioritized in transport infrastructure planning is growing increasingly sophisticated, but most of it has focused on Western countries. Its relevance to China is thus far unknown territory. In this article, we apply the theory on public values and the way various values are traded off against each other to the case of High-Speed Rail development in China. We develop a Public value tradeoff matrix enabling us to identify and measure the various public values at play and to establish what changes took place in the prioritization of various public values over time. In the history of HSR development in China, a shift from regional equity and safety through economic growth and speed to organizational efficiency and cooperation can be observed in the period before HSR took off in China until now. The trading off process takes place through different institutional paradigms and organizational mechanisms in China than in Europe and America, and occurs more at the strategic apex of the administrative hierarchy.