Transit network effects and multilevel access premiums: Evidence from the housing market of Shanghai, China.

Recent decades have witnessed the burgeoning development of mass rapid transit around the world. The growing extensiveness and complexity of transit networks have motivated planners and policy analysts to apply the concepts and analytics of network science to improve transit planning and transit impact assessments. Past studies of transit impacts on property values focused predominantly on measuring local access premiums associated with station proximity. Transit network analysis and assessment of transit value impacts have mainly proceeded in parallel. This study incorporates network concepts and analytics into the study of the capitalization of transit access and network effects. The study estimated hierarchical hedonic price models with housing sales data from Shanghai, China, and identified both the access premium associated with station proximity and the network premium generated by transit network effects. Line-level corridor premiums also existed along three of Shanghai's 15 metro lines. With explicit accounting of multilayer transit access premiums, the study offers new empirical insights that inform evidence-based practice and policy-making, including system planning for service optimization, value capture for transit financing, and affordable housing provisions through transit-oriented development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]