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oai:figshare.com:article/33920677 2026-09-18T05:40:54Z category_1544 portal_316 item_type_3 month_year_09_2026

Data Sheet 1_Capacity without passengers: a five-condition framework for converting Silk Road freight corridors into sustainable heritage tourism corridors.pdf Erkin Farmanov (25070341) Utkir Farmanov (25070344) Bujdosó Zoltán (25070347) Lóránt Dénes Dávid (12251239) Impacts of Tourism Belt and Road Initiative cross-border mobility heritage tourism multimodal connectivity Silk Road sustainable tourism development transport corridor visa facilitation <p>Belt and Road investment has produced an unprecedented expansion of transport capacity along the historic Silk Road, yet almost all was built for freight, not people. The question is under what conditions a freight corridor converts into a functioning international heritage–tourism corridor, defined independently of the conditions by cross-border tourist flows, multi-country itineraries, heritage-node use, and integrated tourism products. This study developed a five-condition conversion framework—a heuristic scorecard, not a validated model—comprising a gateway condition, scheduled cross-border passenger service (C1); two facilitating conditions, mobility facilitation (C2) and single-transaction ticketing (C3); a heritage-access condition, heritage-proximate nodes (C4); and a sustainability safeguard, absorptive capacity (C5). This study applies it to the Trans-Caspian, China-Central Asia, Southern (Iran-Türkiye), and China-Laos Railway corridors, drawing on UNESCO, operator, timetable, and tourism-demand sources, 2021–2026. Only the China-Laos Railway corridor (Kunming-Vientiane) shows the clearest signature of conversion—growing cross-border passenger flows to heritage-proximate nodes—though multi-country itineraries and integrated products are inferred, not directly observed. It satisfies C1 and C4 but only partially C2, C3, and C5, showing ticketing integration and a common third-country visa are enablers, not preconditions, and conversion does not secure sustainability. Measured against this benchmark, the western corridors are heritage-rich but constrained by C1, C3, and C4—scheduled service, interoperable ticketing and heritage-serving routing—not by heritage endowment or visa policy: these are institutional, not capital, problems. Modal analysis shows the emissions-minimizing rail configuration distributes visitor expenditure most widely. This study argues that cross-border passenger volume, not freight tonnage, should be a headline corridor indicator.</p> 2026-09-18T05:40:54Z Dataset Dataset 10.3389/frsut.2026.1948903.s001 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Data_Sheet_1_Capacity_without_passengers_a_five-condition_framework_for_converting_Silk_Road_freight_corridors_into_sustainable_heritage_tourism_corridors_pdf/33920677 CC BY 4.0