Historical analysis of urban public transportation development in modern Tianjin (1902-1949)

Abstract

Tianjin was the earliest city opening urban public transport lines in China. Urban public transportation had profound impacts on urban construction and on the formation of urban structure in Tianjin from 1902 to 1949. Based on the background of urban development, this paper firstly divides the evolution process of public transportation represented by tramways and buses into three periods from the perspectives of the distribution, quantity and operation status of public transportation lines. It then analyses the strong influence of public transportation on urban roads construction from the view of the increased municipal income, road widening, improvement of pavement quality, and bridges construction and maintenance. Finally, by using qualitative and quantitative analysis and superposing the related statistical data with the historical map, it analyses the relationship among public transportation line density, land value partition and basic urban structure, and certifies they were highly relative. In conclusion, the paper argues that Tianjin urban public transport network was based on trams and supplemented by buses, and not only planning ideas but also advanced municipal technologies from the West like public transportation system were also indispensable supports in the process of urban modernization in Chinese modern treaty ports.