The sustainable development of agriculture is significant in protecting natural resources, protecting the ecological environment, ensuring food security, and eliminating poverty. Rural road construction promotes the flow of labor and capital between urban and rural areas, and plays a vital role in agricultural production and rural revitalization. This study aims to analyze the effect of rural road construction on the sustainable development of regional agriculture in China. We select five-dimensional indexes of population, society, economy, resources, and environment and use the entropy method to calculate the agricultural sustainable development index of each province in China. Then, we construct the spatial econometric model to explore the influence based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2002 to 2018. The benchmark results show that rural road construction significantly promotes the sustainable development of agriculture; however, it has a negative impact on environmental sustainability, and the influence is lagging. The results are also heterogeneous among regions. Rural road construction has significantly promoted the sustainable development of agriculture in eastern and central areas, but has no significant impact on western regions. The reason is that the siphoning effect caused by the construction of rural roads has led to a loss of talents and capital in the western region, which harms the sustainable development of the population and resource system. This effect offsets the positive effect of the other three systems. This research has substantial policy implications for promoting rural revitalization and agricultural development.

Agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) is an important indicator to reflect the sustainability level of agriculture. The AGTFP network reflects the spatial correlations of the AGTFP among regions; thus, exploring its network structure and influencing factors can provide targeted policy guidance to the coordinated development of the agriculture sector. This study builds an epsilon-based measurement data envelopment analysis (EBM-DEA) model to calculate 31 provincial AGTFPs in China from 2002 to 2020. Then, social network analysis (SNA) was utilized to explore the characteristics of the AGTFP network, and the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) was applied to find its external influencing factors. We reached four central conclusions: (1) Overall, there was a gradual upward trend of AGTFP in China during 2002~2020, and the average value rose from 0.75 in 2002 to 0.90 in 2020, but there were some differences among regions. (2) There is a complex and stable network characteristic of AGTFP; the average network density is 0.3753, and the average network efficiency is 0.4714. Meanwhile, some eastern and central areas, such as Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Hebei, Jiangsu, etc., have relatively high centrality and are a bridge in the entire network. (3) The AGTFP network can be divided into eight blocks, including two net beneficial blocks (the central-eastern provinces with high centrality); two net spillover blocks, including the provinces located in the developed urban areas (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Jilin), the underdeveloped northwest regions (Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Tibet). The other areas are two-way spillover blocks. (4) Transportation development gap, technological progress gap, and the similarities of the agricultural industry structure are critical factors influencing the AGTFP network. Hence, improving the efficiency of the logistics and transportation industry, promoting technology transfer from developed areas to underdeveloped areas, and developing characteristic agriculture are all conducive to promoting the whole region’s AGTFP. Our research provides policy implications for sustainable agricultural development in China and other developing countries.

Highway construction is vital in agricultural production, directly influencing food security and public health. This study utilized the Epsilon-based measurement-global-Malmquist-model (EBM-GML) and the spatial econometrics model with 31 Chinese provinces’ panel data from 2002 to 2020 to investigate the impacts and the mechanisms of low-grade and high-grade highways on the agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP). Research findings indicated that (1) low-grade and high-grade highway construction significantly promote the AGTFP through technological progress, and the high-grade highway exerts a significant positive spillover effect on the adjacent areas’ AGTFP. (2) The mechanisms of low-grade and high-grade roads on the AGTFP are heterogenous. Low-grade roads could improve the AGTFP by encouraging the rationalization of the agricultural industry structure. High-grade highways promote the AGTFP by upgrading the industry structure. And each-grade road could promote the AGTFP by stimulating the integration of planting and breeding. (3) Both low-grade and high-grade highways improved the AGTFP in non-main-grain-producing areas but inhibited it in main-grain-producing areas. Therefore, this study provided practical policy recommendations for green development in China’s agricultural sector and valuable insights for other developing countries.

With the steady increase of corporate system reform in the railway transportation industry, high-speed railways have accelerated their steps toward marketization, and the market competition they face has become increasingly fierce. In this context, enterprises need to make quick adjustments to new changes in order to seize the market share, obtain stable ticket income, and eventually, achieve financial sustainability while ensuring the healthy development of high-speed railways. Thus, it is particularly important to determine a reasonable ticket price. While considering supply and demand, market competition, and passenger utility, this study constructs a model of the passenger flow sharing rate and applies it to modeling the optimal ticket price for high-speed railways, taking the Beijing–Shanghai High-speed Railway as an example for calculating this model. Using the results calculated, this study analyzes the influence of the optimal ticket price on the financial sustainability of the enterprise through use of the evaluation system of financial sustainability established above. The results show that the existing price for a train ticket from of Beijing to Shanghai is not the optimal one, and there is still room for a price increase; the ticket price has an impact on financial sustainability by affecting corporate operating income and cash flow. The study provides a method for formulating the optimal ticket price for high-speed railway travel and enriches the research on the financial sustainability of high-speed railways.

The transport management mode fundamentally determines the sustainable development of high-speed rail passenger transport (HSRPT), which was shocked by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In order to study the sustainable development mechanism of HSRPT and the impact of COVID-19, primarily based on the data from the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed rail (HSR) taken from 2018, we adopt system dynamics (SD) to provide a scenario simulation method to examination sustainable operation status of HSRPT under the entrusted transportation management mode (ETMM) by VENSIM, and take into account the following two evaluation indicators: economic and operational. The results show the following: (1) Transportation demand and commissioned transportation management fees play a vital role in the sustainable operation of the Beijing–Shanghai HSR, causing significant changes in transportation revenue and transportation costs. (2) COVID-19 had a great impact on the sustainable operation of the Beijing–Shanghai HSR. In 2020, the turnover and transportation profit of the Beijing–Shanghai HSR fell by 74.31% and 49.19%, respectively. In 2022, the transportation profit can be restored to the level of 2019. The study results reveal that Beijing–Shanghai HSR under the ETMM has a good sustainable development capability.

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