Evolution of inter-city transportation modes in China from cars to alternatives

Abstract Over the past few decades, China’s transportation infrastructure has undergone remarkable expansion, yet the evolving inter-city modal shares at granular spatial levels remain unclear. This study bridges this gap by leveraging location-based services (LBS) big data to analyze it from 2015 to 2019. While overall road travel proportion decreased by 9.42%, most regions witnessed a pronounced shift towards rail and air transport. In city pairs with over 50,000 annual trips, rail-dominated trips increased from 37.95% to 54.27%. Key corridors in specific directions predominantly drove the evolution. Notably, the distance decay function of rail has changed prominently, with its competitive edge over road travel extending from around over 1000 km to over 500 km. The three weighted Gini coefficients we constructed show spatial inequalities, especially in rail share changes. We further constructed a modal share evolution potential index and identified greater potential in peripheries and non-traditional rail areas.