Bibliometric mapping: a sino-centric synthesis of HSR passenger preferences, resilience gaps, and air-rail intermodal integration

Abstract

This doctoral thesis integrates the main contributions from four papers studying high-speed rail (HSR), addressing critical gaps in understanding passengers’ preferences, bibliometric trends, resilience of HSR systems, and Air-Rail Intermodal Transport (ARIT). Using systematic literature review and advanced bibliometric tools (such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) modelling, CiteSpace, Python, and Visual Studio Code), we analysed these topic-related publications from Scopus, Web of Science, and CNKI. The key findings show that passengers prioritise travel time, travel cost, frequency, and in-vehicle time. There is a significant gap in coping with freight logistics and emerging competitors (such as maglev trains). Bibliometric analysis illustrates that China holds a dominant position in the HSR sector, with Beijing Jiaotong University leading in institutional contributions. Core journals include Transportation Research Part A and Transport Policy, and prolific authors like Pagliara Francesca and Albalate Daniel lead the field. The resilience study emphasises the increasing importance of HSR on spatial resilience and economic recovery, resilience through transportation mode integration, resilient transportation systems, and resilient environmental infrastructure. The ARIT research highlights that China places greater focus on infrastructure optimisation, while the global emphasis is on sustainability and passenger satisfaction. Emerging trends include cross-border transportation, e-commerce logistics, and climate adaptation strategies. This dissertation provides the first holistic overview of the current state of knowledge linking HSR preferences, resilience, and intermodality, offering actionable insights for researchers and stakeholders.