Economic Evaluation of Superhighway Based on Travel Cost

In order to evaluate the economy of superhighway, on the basis of the analysis of the cost of the ordinary expressway and high speed railway, the cost of superhighway is estimated. On this basis, the standard of the toll of superhighway at all levels is determined by reference to the standard of the construction cost and the toll collection standard of the ordinary expressway. According to the toll collection standard of superhighway and the fuel consumption cost of superhighway at all levels, the cost of single car and the single person cost of superhighway are calculated. Based on the analysis of highway passenger transport, railway passenger transport and civil aviation ticket price, the single person cost per kilometer of the above travel modes is calculated and compared with the single person travel cost per kilometer of superhighway. The results show that the single person cost of superhighway is between 0.29 and 0.47 yuan /km, which is 0.28 yuan /km higher than the highway bus, 0.18 yuan /km higher than the ordinary expressway self driving and 0.23 yuan /km higher than the express train, but 0.78 yuan/km lower than that of the first class seat of high-speed train, and is 0.92 yuan/km far lower than that of civil aviation flight economy class and 2.42 yuan/km lower than the business class. Therefore, the superhighway trip has certain advantages in economy.


Introduction
The maximum design speed of highway in China is 120km/h, which first appeared in the 1951, in Highway Engineering Design Guidelines (Revised Draft) [1].Over the past 60 years, the vehicle performance and road design and construction technology have made great progress, and it is possible to improve the design speed of the highway and build higher grade superhighway.
The economy and safety of the superhighway are the main problems that need to be solved urgently.This paper compares the travel cost between the superhighway and the current travel mode, and evaluates the economy of the superhighway.

Superhighway Concept
The superhighway refers to a highway with a design speed of more than 120km/h, and the superhighway also belongs to the highway.It will adopt high technical indexes than the Technical Standard of Highway Engineering (JTG B01-2014) [2].

Superhighway Grade Division
According to the definition, design speed, applicable model and construction mode of superhighway, the superhighway is divided into first-level superhighway, second-level superhighway and third-level superhighway [2].The specific division is shown in Table 1.The technical conditions of superhighway at various levels and the technical condition of vehicle are different from each other.The service objects, construction methods and the service life of superhighway are different [2], and the specific content is shown in Table 2.

Cost Analysis of Ordinary Expressway
The cost estimation of superhighway mainly refers to the cost of ordinary expressways and high-speed railways.
At present, the standard transverse section width of the roadbed of two-way four-lane expressway in China is generally 24.5m, and the two-way six lane is generally 32.5m.The width of the red line for the planning land of the expressway is 80 m to 100 m [4].Through the inquiry of the website of the Ministry of Communications, the average cost of the four-lane ordinary expressway approved by the Ministry of Transportation in 2014 is about 77 million yuan/km, however, the cost of the ordinary express varies greatly due to different terrain, number of lanes and speed of design [5], as shown in Table 3.The design speed in Northeast Plain area is 120km/h, and the cost of two-way four-lane express is not more than 50 million yuan /km, while the design speed of the expressway in southern mountain areas is 120km/h, and the cost of two-way six-lane expressway exceeds 130 million yuan /km.

Cost Analysis of High-Speed Railway
Compared to the ordinary expressway, the ratio of the bridge to the tunnel of the high-speed railway is generally higher, the difference in construction cost in different areas is slightly smaller, and the general cost is between 100 and 140 million yuan /km [6], as shown in Table 4.

Cost Estimation of Superhighway
The construction cost of superhighway is basically the same as the cost composition of ordinary expressway, however, the different levels of superhighway vary greatly due to different construction methods and service objects.
The first-level superhighway will be rebuilt and expanded on the basis of the ordinary expressway.The main contents of the engineering are the curve cut-off and are to fill in low and cut height, and to increase the safety facilities, which involves the low cost of land expropriation and demolition.In addition, the construction of the first-level superhighway must choose the expressway with better horizontal alignment and reconstruction value in plain area, which is beneficial to further reduce the cost.
The second-level and third-level superhighways are special roads for passenger service vehicles and special roads for smart cars.Compared with ordinary expressway and first-level superhighway, its bridge and tunnel ratio will be improved, however, the load level will be greatly reduced by excluding large trucks.The third-level superhighway is a special highway for automatic driving car, and the load level will be further reduced.The reduction of load grade will greatly reduce the construction cost of super highway.
According to the above analysis, referring to the construction cost of the ordinary expressway and the high speed railway, considering the comprehensive factors such as the improvement of the construction technology and the rising of the price, the cost of the two-way six-lane superhighway is estimated, as shown in Table 5.Based on the two data sources of experiment and "Bitauto test", the SPSS statistical analysis software is used to predict the oil consumption of 100 kilometers and the average is taken (in Table 6).When the price of No. 93 gasoline is 5.98 yuan (October 23, 2016, Harbin), the fuel cost per kilometre is shown in Table 7.China's expressway toll standards vary widely.Generally speaking, the cost of the southeastern coast is relatively high, and the west and the north are relatively low.Taking the four-wheeled car less than seven seats as the example, the average price of the expressway in Shandong, Mogolia, Jilin, Anhui, Sichuan and Guangxi is 0.40 yuan /km, the average price of Beijing expressways is 0.50 yuan/km, Tianjin is 0.55 yuan /km, and Fujian is 0.55 yuan/km [7].The highest toll standard of expressway in China is Shanghai, and the average toll of expressway in Shanghai reaches 0.6 yuan /km.
Taking into account the national expressway toll standard, the average expressway toll of the four-wheeled car less than seven seats is about 0.50 yuan /km.According to the construction cost and charge standard of the ordinary expressway, the construction cost of high speed railway and the construction cost of superhighway, the standard of tolls per kilometer of superhighway is preliminarily estimated, as shown in Table 8.At present, the price of highway passenger transport in China performs the "Vehicle Freight Rates Rules" and "Regulation on Price Management of Road Transportation" issued by Ministry of Transportation and National Development and Reform Commission [8].The two documents specify the calculation standards, the pricing rules and the passenger fare calculation methods of highway passenger transport price.

Passenger Transport Price
The "Vehicle Freight Rates Rules" stipulates that the mileage of the highway passenger fare takes km as the unit.If the mantissa is less than 1km, it will be calculated according to the rounding-off method.
(1) Charged mileage: The mileage of China's highway passenger transport operation route is calculated according to the atlas of "China Highway Operation Mileage compiled by the Ministry of Transport.If it is not clearly marked in the "China Highway Operation Mileage", it will be approved by various local departments in charge of transportation (Provincial and Municipal Road Transport Administration, and County Road Transport Management Office) according to the actual mileage.
(2) Mileage calculation: The highway passengers' transport mileage is calculated according to the actual mileage.

Pricing Regulations
(1) The calculation basis for the formulation of the passenger transport price mainly includes vehicle class, vehicle grade and vehicle type.
(2) Classification of vehicle categories: According to the "Vehicle Freight Rates Rules", the types of road passenger cars are divided into two categories: seat coaches and sleeper buses.Among them, the seat coach is divided into 5 grades of common, intermediate, high first level, high second level, and high third level according to the comfort level and vehicle grade.The sleeper bus is divided into 3 grades of common, intermediate and advanced in accordance with the same standard.

Passenger ticket price constitution
The price of highway passenger transport ticket includes vehicle type freight rate, mileage freight rate, station cost, toll and fuel surcharge.

Freight Unit
(1)Passenger ticket price unit: The minimum ticket price for each road ticket is 1 yuan.When the ticket price is 1 yuan to 10 yuan, and when the mantissa is less than or equal to 0.2 yuan, the mantissa is removed; when the mantissa is 0.3 to 0.7 yuan, 0.5 yuan is taken; when the mantissa is 0.8 to 0.9, 1 yuan is taken; when the ticket price exceeds 10 yuan and the mantissa is less than 1 yuan, the mantissa will be rounded.
(2)Passenger luggage freight unit: The charge unit of the luggage freight is yuan.When the mantissa of the total cost of a single waybill is not more than 1 yuan, it is calculated by rounding-off method.

Actual Fare for Highway Passenger Bus
According to the above highway bus fare pricing rules, combined with the 12308 national bus ticket booking platform, the actual fare of the national highway bus is queried, as shown in Table 10.According to Table 10, the average speed of highway passenger transport in China is about 83km/h, and the average fare is about 0.28 yuan /km/ person.

Cost Estimation of Expressway Self Driving
A mobile phone "Baidu Map" is used to search for different cities as the starting point and end point of the route search.Travel mode is chosen as "driving".The software will show the optimal path between the starting point and the end point, and provide the information of driving time, mileage, the cost of passing the road and the number of signal lights.Through "Baidu Map", we can easily estimate the mileage, cost and time between different cities.
The average speed of inter city long-distance driving is about 100km/h, and the average fuel consumption is 7.22L/km when the vehicle speed is 100km/h according to the calculation.On August 5, 2016, the price of No.93 gasoline was 5.71 yuan /L, according to which the fuel consumption per kilometer was 0.413 yuan.Therefore, the estimated cost of highway self driving based on Baidu Map is shown in Table 11.It can be seen from Table 9 that at present, the car self driving road toll between cities is between 0.48 and 0.51 yuan /km, with an average of 0.50 yuan /km, and the total highway self driving cost is between 0.90 to 0.92 yuan / car•km, with an average of 0.91 yuan / car•km.The car is calculated according to 5 seats per car, which is equivalent to 0.180 to 0.184 yuan / seat•km, with an average of 0.182 yuan / seat•km.

Railway Passenger Transport Fare Composition
The train ticket price is not simply divided according to the seat(hard seat, hard berth, soft seat, soft berth), and it is not simply calculated according to the unit mileage price × the total mileage, and its calculation is more complex [9].The pricing rules of high-speed rail and EMU train are more complicated because of speeding up fares and air conditioning fares.
The passenger ticket price of our country includes three parts: Passenger ticket price.There are 4 kinds of passenger ticket price, including hard seat, soft seat, suburb and box car passenger ticket price(the box car has been canceled).The price of the hard seat ticket is the base fare.The price of the soft seat is based on the hard seat fare, and is converted at a certain rate.
Additional ticket fare.The additional ticket fare includes speeding up, sleeper and air ticket price, and the additional fare is based on hard seat fares.
Insurance premium.The first two parts constitute basic fares.Therefore, it can be said that the passenger fare includes two parts: the basic fare and the compulsory insurance premium for passengers' accidental injury.The basic fare is determined by the method of decreasing rate with increasing distance based on the fare rate per person per thousand meters according to the distance of the travel and the different equipment conditions of the train.Insurance premium is calculated on the basis of 2% of the basic fare of hard seat ticket, which is used as a fund to pay insurance premium when passengers have accidental injuries in their travel.

Railway Passenger Transport Pricing Rules
(1) Basic fares and various fares The pricing of railway passenger fares is based on hard seat ticket rates, and other fares, such as soft seats, hard sleeper and soft sleeper, are all based on hard seat ticket rates.When the railway passenger ticket price is formulated, the basic fare rate of the hard seat passenger ticket should be determined first, and then the rate of other tickets is calculated according to the proportion of the base fare increase or reduction.At present, the proportion of fare rates determined by The Railway Passenger Transport Freight Rate Rules (rail transport (1997) No. 102) is implemented in various fares of ordinary railway passenger transport in China, as shown in Table 12.(2) Travel Section of Passenger Ticket Price The fare of railway passengers is not calculated entirely according to the mileage, but is calculated according to the section.The railway department divides a transportation line into several sections according to mileage, and the same section has the same fare.The standard of passenger fare mileage section division is shown in Table 13.(3)Decreasing rate with increasing distance The cost of passenger transport service includes two parts.One is the service of the railway passenger station at the beginning and the end, and the service cost does not increase with the increase of mileage.The other part moves with the vehicle, and realizes the service for moving, and the cost of service is proportional to the mileage [10].Therefore, the farther the mileage, the smaller the service cost ratio of the passenger station.According to the fairness principle of the ticket price, the railway passenger fare is calculated by the method of decreasing rate with increasing distance, and it is implemented from 201km.The decreasing rate with increasing distance and decreasing rate of hard seat ticket price of each mileage section stipulated in The Railway Passenger Transport Freight Rate Rules (railway(1997) No.102) are shown in Table 14.

Calculation Method of Passenger Fares
Railway passenger fares include three parts: basic fare, insurance premium and additional charge.
(1) Calculation of Basic Fare The railway passenger fare is mainly based on the section mileage.If the initial section is less than the minimum mileage, it is calculated according to the minimum mileage.
(2) Insurance Premium The railway passenger insurance premium is calculated by 2% of the basic ticket price of the hard seat passenger ticket, without the rating of sitting or lying, with 0.1 yuan as a unit.When the cost is less than 0.1 yuan, it is calculated according to 0.1 yuan.
(3) Additional Charge The additional charge mainly includes railway passenger development fund, waiting room air conditioning fee and so on.When the fare of passengers is less than 5 yuan, the passenger development fund is 0.5 yuan; when the fare is higher than 5 yuan, it is 1 yuan.Only part of the line charges the air conditioning fee of the waiting room.

Analysis of Actual Fare
According to the pricing rules and methods stipulated in the "Railway Passenger Transport Freight Rate Rules", and in the railway customer service website(http://www.12306.cn), the ticket price of the passenger train in the some sections can be queried, as follows: (1) The Actual Fare of the Express Train Express trains are the abbreviation for special express passenger trains, and the maximum speed of express trains is 140km.The express train across the Railway Bureau stops only in the provincial capital city, the sub provincial city and a few major prefecture-level cities, and the express train in the Railway Bureau usually stops in the prefecture level city.The actual fare for some express trains between cities is shown in Table 15.As can be seen from Table 15, the ticket price of the hard seat of express train per kilometer in China is between 0.11 and 0.14 yuan, with an average of 0.12 yuan.The price of the lower berth per kilometer is between 0.20 and 0.26 yuan, with an average of 0.23 yuan.
Actual Ticket Price for EMU Train The EMU train is a railway train composed of motor trains and whose speed is less than 250km/h.The type of EMU train is mainly CRH1, CRH2 and CRH5.The actual fare for the EMU train in some cities is shown in Table 16.It can be seen from Table 16 that the price of the first class seat per kilometre of EMU train in China is 0.31 yuan, and the price of the two class seat per kilometre is between 0.48 and 0.49 yuan, with an average of 0.48 yuan per kilometer.
(3) Actual Fare for High Speed Trains The Design Specification for High Speed Railway (TB 10621-2014) defines the high-speed rail train as follows: It is the EMU train with the design speed of 250km/h (including reserved) and above.The initial operation speed is not less than 200km/h.The characteristics of the high-speed rail train is that the operation line is different from the increasing speed of existing lines, which belongs to the passenger dedicated line and the speed is not less than 250 km/h.The actual fare for a high-speed rail train in some cities is shown in Table 17.17 that the price of the first class seat per kilometer of the high speed train in China is between 0.77 and 0.78 yuan, with an average of 0.78 yuan, and the price of the second class seat per kilometer is between 0.48 and 0.49 yuan, with an average of 0.48 yuan.

Pricing Mechanism about Air Tickets
At present, our government controls the air fares according to "Civil Aviation Law, Price Law and Central Pricing Catalogue".The price is guided by the government by examination and approval system and registration and recording system [11].
Based on the "Civil Aviation Domestic Air Transport Price Reform Plan", when the airlines sell air tickets at home and abroad, the basis price is 0.75 yuan/km per person and the actual price is within the range of increasing 25% or decreasing 40%.In terms of air routes operated privately by airlines, they only control the highest price but not control the lowest price.The basis price is usually referred as the price of non-hot lines or the economy class at non-hot time.The price of real hot lines and hot-time lines, business class and first class is far beyond the basic price

Real Ticket Price of Airlines
The Table 18 shows ticket price (before discount) of parts of airlines based on the data published on website of Ctrip and Qunar.business class is much higher than that of the economy class.The price is 4.04 yuan/km and 1.54 yuan/km respectively, which is far more than the price of highway and railways.However, there are obvious differences between tickets of air passenger and highways or railways.For example, the air fare has differences because of seasons and time and it has big discounts.Around the Spring Festival or during the period of summer and winter vacation, the real price is usually higher than that in other time.The price of flights taking-off and landing in daytime is much higher than that of flights taking-off and landing in midnight or at dawn.As a result, the discount is raging from 30% to 90%.The average discount is 60% so the ticket price of business class and economy class is 2.42 yuan/km and 0.92 yuan/km respectively after discounting.

Comparison of Fares in Different Trip Modes
In order to compare easily, all the fares in different trip modes are listed in Table 19.The Table 19 shows that the difference of per kilometer price of different modes is so various.The lowest price is 0.12 yuan/km per person about hard seats of express trains.The highest price is 2.42 yuan/km per person about business class of civil aviation.The two kinds of prices have 20 times of difference.
For the first-level superhighway travel cost, the highway buses and second class seats of bullet trains are nearly the same, which is higher than the price of self-driving on the ordinary expressway and express trains, but lower than the price of first-level seats of bullet trains, the high-speed rail and the civil aviation; The second-level superhighway travel cost is higher than the price of second class seats of bullet trains and lower than the price of first class seats of bullet trains, which is much lower than that of first class seats of bullet trains, the high-speed rail and the civil aviation; The third-level superhighway travel cost is nearly the same as the price of second class seats of the high-speed rail and far lower than that of first class seats of the high-speed rail and the civil aviation.According to the above analysis, the travel cost of superhighway at all levels is far higher than that of express trains and self-driving on the ordinary expressway, but it is much lower than business class and economy class of the civil aviation and even lower than the price of first class seats of the high-speed rail.As a result, it has some advantages in price.

7.Conclusions
On the basis of the analysis of the cost of the ordinary expressway and high speed railway, the cost of superhighway is estimated.On this basis, the standard of the toll of superhighway at all levels is determined by reference to the standard of the construction cost and the toll collection standard of the ordinary expressway.According to the toll collection standard of superhighway and the fuel consumption cost of superhighway at all levels, the cost of single car and the single person cost of superhighway are calculated.
On the basis of the analysis of highway passenger transport, railway passenger transport and civil aviation ticket price, the single person cost per kilometer of the above travel modes is calculated and compared with the single person travel cost per kilometer of superhighway.The results show that the single person cost of superhighway is between 0.29 and 0.47 yuan /km, which is 0.28 yuan /km higher than the highway bus, 0.18 yuan /km higher than the ordinary expressway self driving and 0.23 yuan /km higher than the express train, but 0.78 yuan/km lower than that of the first class seat of high-speed train, and is far lower than that of civil aviation flight economy class 0.92 yuan/km and business class 2.42 yuan/km.Therefore, the superhighway trip has certain advantages in economy.

Table 1
Classification of Highway

Table 2
Comparison of Superhighway

Table 4
High-speed rail construction cost comparison

Table 5
Construction cost estimation of superhighway

Table 6
Comparison of the average value of the predicted fuel consumption in constant speed

Table 8 Toll
Estimation of Superhighway Single Car Use Cost and Single Person CostThe use cost of superhighway mainly includes two parts, fuel cost and toll.According to Table7and 8, the use cost of single car in superhighway is calculated, and the single person cost is calculated in Table9according to 5 seats per car.

Table 9
The use cost of superhighway

Table 10
Actual fare for highway passenger vehicle

Table 11
Estimation of highway self-driving cost

Table 12
Various fare rates and the proportion relationship

Table 13
Passenger fares mileage section

Table 14
Passenger fare rate (with hard seat fare as an example)

Table 15
Actual price of express trains

Table 16
Actual price of EMU train

Table 17
Actual fare of high-speed train

Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 21 December 2018 Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 21 December 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201812.0264.v1
Table18 Actual price of airline tickets(Before discount) According to Table18, the average flying speed is about 550 km/h.The real price of air tickets have relation with the distance and the position levels.The further the distance is, the lower the average per kilometer freight rate is, whereas, the higher the price per kilometer is.The price of

Table 19
Cost comparison of different travel modes