# A Data-Driven Analysis on the Impact of High-Speed Rails on Land Prices in Taiwan
## 1 Introduction  
Taiwan's high-speed rail (HSR) network, which opened in January 2007, spans some 345 km from Northern to Southern Taiwan along the Western Corridor where the majority of the country's population are centered. The HSR line consists of twelve stations, with the initial eight stations opening in 2007, followed by the other four in 2010 (Figure 1). Before the introduction of the HSR, commuters needed five hours to travel from Taipei to Kaohsiung by bus or conventional rail, and this inaccessibility restricted population and commercial growth outside Taipei and widened the economic gap among regions. With the HSR, the total travel time has drastically reduced to ninety minutes from Taipei to Kaohsiung and no more than 2 h from Taipei to Tainan. According to a survey on the long-term usage patterns of HSR in Taiwan and Shanghai, the improvement in accessibility is the prime reason accounting for the significant increase in HSR usage, with the speed advantage and travel time savings being the main motivation for commuters to choose to travel on the HSR [1]. While HSR brings about benefits, such as increased accessibility, time savings, and higher productivity, the resulting economic gains are also accompanied by a significant increase in land value and property prices along the HSR lines. According to [PERSON] and [PERSON] [3], house prices have jumped by 14.67% following the introduction of the HSR. On the contrary, it is also noted that house prices showed an increasing trend even prior to the introduction of the HSR lines in 2007 (Figure 2). Instead, the monocentric layout of many Taiwanese metropolitan areas was previously found to give rise to the relationship between residential property prices and the distance to the central business district (CBD), and to a lesser extent, the distance to the nearest HSR station [4,5]. Since 2013, Taiwan has ranked fourth as the hottest property market in the world with the house-price-to-income ratio of Taipei City being the highest globally [7,8]. According to the Ministry of the Interior of Taiwan, the house-price-to-income ratio rose to 9.2 in 2013. This ratio indicates that it will take more than nine years for a person to own a property if they put their entire salary towards mortgage payment. While modest rises in house prices will give a boost to economic recovery, a continued rise in house-price-to-earnings ratios leaves great cause for concern from a longer-term perspective. Many house buyers will need to take out larger mortgages in order to get on the property ladder, making the economy more vulnerable and sensitive to future interest rate movements. It also leaves the possibility that in the event of a future house price falls, living standards will be negatively affected, as many younger people will struggle to pay their housing costs. From a societal point of view, the large disparities among house prices in different locations impede geographical mobility, as expensive house prices make it more difficult for people to move around the country. Equally undesirable is the widening of inter-generational wealth inequality brought about by rising house prices which divides the country into those who inherit a house from their previous generations and those who do not  
Figure 1: Stations of Taiwan’s high-speed rail (HSR) line [2]. Figure 2: Lutheran home price index (Q1 2001 = 100) (**a**) and the change in house price (% change over a year earlier) (**b**) in Taipei, Taiwan [6]. Indeed, increasing the housing-prices-to-income ratio is a concern in many cities around the world, as the affordability of housing affects the social security of the people in a country. The factors influencing house prices are diversified and complex. Generally, the housing market is influenced by the state of the economy, interest rates, and real income which determine the affordability of housing with speculative demand putting pressure on house prices on top of changes in the size of the population.