Evaluation Analysis and Recommendations for the Development of the Menda Railway Site Based on TOPSIS Model

Abstract

In order to realize the goal of “building up mobile homestays among lucid waters and lush mountains”, the Mentougou District of Beijing wants to plan the surrounding area with the theme of “One Line and Four Mines” in the west of Beijing. In order to comply with the requirement of “one station, one scene”, 12 railway stations need to be planned and developed in different directions, So the station development needs to be evaluated and analyzed first. In this study, the entropy weight method and the TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution) method are comprehensively used to establish indicators from five aspects: natural potential, mining heritage potential, social potential, traffic potential and tourism potential, and to evaluate the development decision of 12 railway stations of the Menda Railway. The tourism development direction and development importance of abandoned railway stations are decided from the horizontal and vertical dimensions, and the results of the TOPSIS model are expanded beyond the numerical value itself. On this basis, this study also combined with the existing situation of each site, and gave suggestions on the development planning of each site.

1. Introduction

1.1. Overview of Menda Railway

The Menda Railway is located in the Mentougou District in western Beijing and is part of the Jingmen Railway. The Mentougou mountainous area is rich in coal resources, and the Menda Railway was built to transport coal from the mountainous area to the urban area of Beijing in a convenient and quick manner. The railway line was built in 1906 by Zhan Tianyou, the father of Chinese railroads, and is 34.08 km long from Mentougou to Datai [1,2]. The construction of the railway line was relatively difficult, as it was mountainous and did not have the modern shield technology of today, so it took the way of going around the mountain, entering the mountain in the northwest direction from the Mentougou station, winding up along the right bank of the Yongding River, and after passing the Dingjiatan and Seshufen stations, the line reached Qingshuijian, crossed the Qingshuijian ditch, and then followed the left bank of the Qingshuijian ditch to Datai village. In 1939–1940, the Japanese army adjusted the traffic mode of the Mentougou station of the Menda railway line and added the Yexi station, Lopoling station and Datai Mine Station. In 1957, the Menda railway line was extended to the Muchengjian coal mine [2] with a length of 53 km, and there were four coal mines along the Menda railway line—Wangpingcun mine, Datai mine, Muchengjian mine and Qianjuntai mine [3]. The railroad line has been responsible for the task of transporting coal mines from the Mentougou area to Beijing city, and has also become the main channel for passenger transport between the Mentougou area and Beijing city. So far, it has been operating for more than a hundred years. In the 1970s, due to the development of road traffic, the Menda Railway stopped passenger traffic one after another, and stopped coal traffic until the 1990s. Today, this railway has been completely abandoned and lost its busy scene.

Since the 21st century, the renewal and development of the railroad and the stations along the line have been gradually started. In 2020, the Mentougou District held a special meeting on the task of conceptual planning for the “One Line and Four Mines” and the surrounding areas in western Beijing [3]. This is a task plan for the realization of the “One Line and Four Mines” and the surrounding area. This regional planning is a major project to achieve the goal of “building up mobile homestays among lucid waters and lush mountains “, which is expected to create a “special tourism (and commuting) line” based on the idle railroad assets of the “Mentougou Line”, linking the ecological landscape, revolution history, folk customs, ancient roads and villages along the way, religious temples and cultural resources of the Beijing West coal industry. In the planning, five new stations will be added to the Menda Railway and restored to the original seven stations of the Menda Railway line, for a total of 12 railway station points. The railway stations, which are Mentougou Station, Luliqu Station (newly built), Yexi Station, Xiehejian Station (newly built), Dingjiatan Station, Jiuyuan Station (newly built), Seshufen Station, Wangpingcun Mine Station (newly built), Lopaling Station, Datai Mine Station, Muchengjian Mine Station and Qianjuntai Mine Station (newly built) are arranged in the following order from east to west (Figure 1).

1.2. The Significance of Research

The significance of this study is that based on the evaluation system, useful suggestions and guidance can be given to the design and planning of the corresponding stations of the Menda Railway. The Menda railway line, from the opening—prosperity—decline, after a century of vicissitudes, witnessed the development of mining culture in the western mountains of Mentougou, but also witnessed the development of the villages gathered along the railroad. Railroad heritage protection and development first need a strategic goal [4]. The “One Line and Four Mines” project will be planned around the themes of natural ecology, industrial civilization, traditional culture and rural revitalization to create a railroad sightseeing line for both commuting and suburban tourism. The implementation of key protection and development of 12 stations along the Menda Railway will be an important means to achieve the goal, and the goal is to create a “one station, one scene” characteristic landscape [3]. As a railroad heritage site, it plays multiple roles in this plan: in terms of tourism functions, it serves as a node for tourism development and is a place where regional tourism functions concentrate [5]. In terms of cultural heritage, it serves as a cultural landmark, establishing a link between historical events and public memory [6]. In terms of production and life, it plays an significant role in community revitalization [6]. In terms of transport links, it has the dual role of transport and cultural route linkage [7]. The site is a vital part of the railway heritage. Based on the multiple roles of the stations as railroad heritage in conservation and development planning, this study attempts to establish an evaluation system for the 12 station areas of the Menda Railway, and to sort out and analyze more systematically the sites of significance in each station area, and to find the strengths and weaknesses of the 12 stations in terms of tourism, culture, landscape, traffic, and their unique competitiveness, such as evaluating their attractiveness to tourists as important tourism resources. The potential of the sites to be integrated into the overall cultural significance of the Menda Railway heritage is also evaluated. The significance of this study is that based on this evaluation system, useful suggestions and guidance can be offered to the design and planning of the corresponding sites.

1.3. Related Studies

When the railroad is a cultural heritage, it can not only be used as a tourist or humanistic educational attraction, but it can also have a traffic function by reconstructing some historical railroads as a cultural route connecting tourist activities. Tourism development is a strategy to realize the preservation and utilization of railway heritage [7]. For the value of railroad heritage tourism, it is based on the value of the railroad as a cultural heritage itself, and also for the value of the railroad as a tourism resource development, which needs to be evaluated, and the basic method uses the value-based approach (values-based approach), the core of which is the evaluation of its value. Such value evaluation studies are conducted from macro, meso and micro levels. At the macro level, there are studies that macroscopically analyze the value advantages of six national railroad heritages in China from the perspective of sustainable development and show the advantages and disadvantages of each railroad heritage resource [8]. At the macro level, some studies compare the value advantages of China’s sixth national railway heritage sites from a sustainability perspective and show the advantages and disadvantages of each railway heritage resource. At the meso level, a quantitative approach is usually used to evaluate a particular aspect of a railroad heritage, using variables such as railroad operation, reasons for using the service, and evaluation characteristics to analyze the evaluation of railroad heritage reuse by railroad passengers [9]. This is also the research that has been conducted more often. For example, taking the Yunnan–Vietnam railroad heritage as the research object, quantifying the landscape value of the Yunnan–Vietnam railroad area, establishing a comprehensive evaluation system of railroad heritage landscape and history, tourism, ecology, heritage, social culture and visual quality, and dividing the landscape of the Yunnan–Vietnam railroad area into five classes [10]. For example, the railroad industrial heritage along the Jinan section of the Jiaoji Railway is classified into material (building and structure) and non-material heritage (industrial culture and technology), and the overall value is evaluated according to its historical value, artistic value, technological value and economic value [11]. For example, the heritage value of the Bishi Railway was evaluated from five perspectives: railroad technology, national struggle, social economy, humanistic exchanges, and landscape corridor [12]. At the micro level, it is the research of railway stations. The protection and development of railway stations should be combined with traffic management and service [9], architectural heritage protection [13], dynamic evaluation of visual quality along railway lines [10], railway historical landscape and so on. For example, in the development of the Dire Dawa station as a railroad heritage tourism resource for future development, the tangible elements (railroad technology and scenes created by the introduction of the railroad) and intangible elements (stories, various types of historical and cultural landscapes) are qualitatively evaluated as important tourism resources to determine whether they have the potential to attract tourists [14]. At the micro level, studies on the evaluation system of railroad heritage sites are relatively rare.

To sum up, the conservation and development of railroad heritage sites is a multi-objective system, and the micro-level evaluation of railroad heritage sites is also a multi-objective system, which needs an effective method to support. TOPSIS is a common decision-making method for multi-objective decision analysis and evaluation, which has the characteristics of convenient calculation and scientific and reasonable results, and is widely used in many fields of evaluation and decision making [15]. The TOPSIS method on multi-objective decision making is to define a measure in the target space and solve the distance between the evaluation object and the positive and negative ideal solutions, which can better meet the demand for the horizontal and vertical comparison of indicators and objects on the spatial measure [16]. It is also able to express the importance and advantages of the station with specific values. Combined with the TOPSIS model in station siting [17], station location, station emergency management [18], station service level [19] the interchange capacity of the station [20] and the emergency planning decision of the station in the face of flooding [20], the evaluation system is combined with multiple objectives to provide an effective decision-making solution.

The TOPSIS method has the following advantages: (1) there are no strict restrictions and requirements on the number and selection of indicators [15]. No matter the small sample data or multi objectives, the evaluation results can be obtained efficiently, which is suitable for the selection of hierarchical indicators based on development objectives in this study; (2) in the evaluation, the original data are fully utilized, and the information loss is relatively small, which can realize the horizontal comparison of different evaluation objects in the same aspect and the vertical comparison of the same evaluation object in aspects [16]. It can make a more effective decision on the importance of research objectives and the development direction; (3) this method also shows many advantages, such as simple operation, authenticity and reliability, intuitive representation, etc. Therefore, given the above advantages, this experiment uses the TOPSIS method to evaluate the site decision. The entropy weight method is adopted for the index weighting in this study. The entropy weight method has the following advantages in this study: (1) calculating the weight based on the original information of the evaluation index of the Menda Railway can reflect the implicit information of the data, enhance the distinguishing significance and difference of the index, and avoid the analysis difficulty caused by the small difference of the selected index [16]; (2) the entropy weight method can enlarge the indicators with huge differences, help to select the unique advantages of railway stations, find the advantages of railway stations and enlarge advantages of railway stations [15], which is in line with the goal of “one station, one scene”; (3) compared with the subjective weighting method, it can fully reflect all kinds of information, with stronger objectivity and higher accuracy, and can more accurately explain and characterize the position and role of each indicator in the evaluation index system of regional railway stations, and truly reflect the evaluation [15].

2. Construction of the Evaluation System and Methodological Model for the Development of the Heritage Site of the Menda Railway

2.1. Construction of the Evaluation System for the Development of the Menda Railway Heritage Site

2.1.1. Selection of Indicators for Railroad Site Development

The rationality of the evaluation of railroad sites needs to be established in a set of effective evaluation index system, and the construction of a scientific and complete index system is also a prerequisite for arriving at accurate evaluation results. The establishment of the evaluation index system should follow the principles of feasibility, scientificity, systematization, representativeness, objectivity, etc. [21]. In view of this, this paper draws on the analysis framework and its construction system of the existing literature, and in the development and evaluation of traffic tourist sites, it not only tests hard indicators, such as natural environment [22,23,24], soft indicators of human resources [23,24], but also evaluates indicators as traffic hubs [16,25]. The evaluation indexes of traffic hubs are also included. Meanwhile, considering the policy of “natural ecology, industrial civilization, traditional culture, rural revitalization” and “commuting and suburban tourism” as the development themes of the tourist heritage sites of the Menda Railway, the target-level indicators are selected in order to meet the policy development requirements. In order to meet the development requirements of the policy, the target level indicators are selected as the result-oriented indicators, while the secondary indicators are used as the basic criteria indicators. By compiling the above development themes, the development directions of the railroad heritage sites are “Natural scenery protection and development type”, “Mining heritage type”, “Commercial services type”, “Traffic hub type”, and “Resorts tourism-led type”. From the above themes and directions, and combined with the related results of other scholars, the sites were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively in five indicators: natural potential, mining heritage potential, social potential, traffic potential, and tourism potential. At the same time, taking into account the availability of data and trying to cover the indicators of available data [16]. The specific index system is detailed in Figure 2, reflecting the diversity, comprehensiveness and comprehensiveness of the indicators as much as possible.

2.1.2. Indicator Data Sources

The experimental data are obtained from the data collected from the development platform of Gaode Map in 2020 and the elevation (dem) data of Mentougou in 2021, and the road network data are collected on OpenStreetMap (

Table 1. Data description of the railroad site development evaluation system based on “One Line and Four Mines”.

Tier 1 Indicators	Secondary Indicators	Calculation Method	Nature of Indicator	Variables
Natural Potential	Average slope	Based on Mentougou dem elevation data	Negative	$x_1$
	Average elevation	Based on Mentougou dem elevation data	Negative	$x_2$
	Average river density	Based on river area	Positive	$x_3$
	Forest cover	Based on remote sensing images	Positive	$x_4$
Mining heritage potential	Number of mining sites	On-site research statistics	Positive	$x_5$
	Number of large mining-related plants	Distance along the road network	Negative	$x_6$
Social Potential	Population density	Housing density instead of population density	Positive	$x_7$
	Number of hotels and lodges	Based on the Gaode development platform	Positive	$x_8$
	Commercial service facility points	Based on the Gaode development platform	Positive	$x_9$
Traffic Potential	Number of bus stops	Based on the Gaode development platform	Positive	$x_{10}$
	Distance to nearest bus stop	Distance along the road network	Negative	$x_{11}$
	Number of available railroad stations	Based on research statistics	Positive	$x_{12}$
	Road network density	Based on OSM road network data	Positive	$x_{13}$
Tourism Potential	Number of famous scenic spots	Based on the Gaode development platform	Positive	$x_{14}$
	Richness of attraction types	Attraction Type Statistics	Positive	$x_{15}$
	Number of traditional villages	Based on government documents	Positive	$x_{16}$

). The data are time-sensitive and can better evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each site under current conditions.

2.2. Methodology and Model for Evaluating the Development of the Heritage Site of the Menda Railway

2.2.1. Introduction to the Entropy Weighting Method for the Evaluation Indicators of the Gate University Railway

The methods of determining indicator weights usually include: AHP method, expert scoring method, etc. The above assignment methods are subjective, while the entropy weighting method for indicator assignment can avoid subjective errors and can reflect the indicator information of railroad heritage more objectively. The specific operation steps are as follows.

The entropy value of the indicator is calculated with the following formula.

$$\begin{array}{c}{e}_i=\frac{{\sum }_{j=1}^n{r}_{ij}\times \mathit{ln}{r}_{ij}}{\mathit{ln}n}\end{array}$$

(1)

where, $m$ is the number of evaluation indicators, and $n$ is the number of sites, and $r_{ij}$ is the matrix after normalization, and $e_i$ is the $i$ is the entropy value of the indicator.

The index weights are calculated with the following formula:

$$\begin{array}{c}{w}_i=\frac{1-e_i}{{\sum }_{i=1}^m\left(1-e_i\right)}\end{array}$$

(2)

where, $w_i$ is the $i$ weight of the indicator, i.e., the entropy weight.

2.2.2. Introduction to the TOPSIS Method of the Gate University Railroad Evaluation Model

TOPSIS is a common decision-making method for multi-objective decision analysis and evaluation, which has the characteristics of easy calculation and scientific and reasonable results, and is widely used in many fields of evaluation and decision-making problems. Using this feature, the entropy method of objective weighting is applied to the TOPSIS method to establish the entropy–TOPSIS model, determine the ideal solution of each index according to the real situation, and calculate the Euclidean distance between each evaluation solution and the positive and negative ideal solutions, i.e., the closer to the optimal solution, the higher the score, and the closer to the worst solution, the lower the score. In turn, the relative closeness of each evaluation scheme to the ideal solution is found, and the schemes are ranked according to their magnitudes. The specific steps are as follows [18]:

To evaluate $m$ number of stations with $n$ number of indicators, a decision matrix $A={\left(a_{ij}\right)}_{m\times n}$ needs to be constructed, $a_{ij}$ representing station $i$, indicator $j$ (= 1, 2, 3…,= 1, 2, 3…,= 1, 2, 3…).

There are positive and negative directionality in the evaluation index of the site, for example, the greater the slope, the lower the score; the more attractions, the higher the score; the slope in the above is negative, the number of attractions is positive; if we want to carry out model calculation, we need to unify the positive and negative directionality of the data, that is, the positive processing.

Since the data units of each indicator layer are different, it is also necessary to standardize the data in order to eliminate the influence of different magnitudes of indicators. The standardization matrix after eliminating the dimension is $B{\left(a_{ij}\right)}_{m\times n}$, the normalization formula is as follows.

$$\begin{array}{c}{B}_{ij}=\frac{a_{ij}}{\sqrt{{\sum }_{i=1}^n{a}_{ij}^2}}\end{array}$$

(3)

After completing the standardization, the maximum and minimum values of each indicator need to be defined.

$$B^{+}=\left(B_1^{+},B_2^{+},\dots ,B_m^{+}\right)=(\max \left\{a_{11},a_{21},\dots ,a_{n1}\right\},\dots ,\left(\max \left\{a_{1m},a_{1m},\dots ,a_{nm}\right\}\right)$$

(4)

$$B^{-}=\left(B_1^{-},B_2^{-},\dots ,B_m^{-}\right)=(\min \left\{a_{11},a_{21},\dots ,a_{n1}\right\},\dots ,\left(\min \left\{a_{1m},a_{1m},\dots ,a_{nm}\right\}\right)$$

(5)

After completing the above steps, the maximum and minimum distances are calculated, and the maximum distance is recorded as $D_i^{+}$ and the minimum distance is written as $D_i^{-}$

$$\begin{array}{c}{D}_i^{+}=\sqrt{{\displaystyle {\displaystyle \sum }_{j=1}^m}{\left(B_j^{+}-z_{ij}\right)}^2}\end{array}$$

(6)

$$\begin{array}{c}{D}_i^{-}=\sqrt{{\displaystyle {\displaystyle \sum }_{j=1}^m}{\left(B_j^{-}-z_{ij}\right)}^2}\end{array}$$

(7)

The maximum distance and minimum distance are converted and normalized to obtain the final score$C$, the final score calculation process is as follows.

$$\begin{array}{c}{C}_i=\frac{D_i^{-}}{D_i^{+}+D_i^{-}}\end{array}$$

(8)

The results of site development evaluation under each indicator in each city are ranked by the magnitude of the final evaluation result, and the closeness $C_i$ The magnitude of the closeness determines the level of development of the site in this area. $C_i$ The larger the value, the closer the development potential of the area under this indicator is to the positive ideal solution, indicating that the area has development advantages in this area. $C_i$ The smaller the value, the closer the development potential of the area is to the negative ideal solution, indicating that the area does not have development advantages.

3. Analysis of the Development of the Menda Railway Station Based on the Model Results

3.1. Comprehensive Score Evaluation Analysis of TOPSIS Sites

Through the above methodological model, the natural potential, mining heritage potential, social potential, traffic potential, and tourism potential were used as five primary indicators, and 15 secondary indicators were assigned under the primary indicators. Specific values were calculated using software such as ARCGIS and MAITLAB to assign specific objective values to each indicator; the completed matrix was continued to be calculated and analyzed using the TOPSIS model to calculate and rank the values at each level, and the results were obtained, as shown in

Table 2. Evaluation results of railroad site development based on “One Line and Four Mines”.

Site Name	Positive Ideal Solution Distance D+	Negative Ideal Solution Distance D−	Relative Proximity C	Sort Results
Mentougou Station	0.1	0.243	0.709	1
Liuliqu Station	0.168	0.162	0.491	2
Wangpingcun Mine Station	0.215	0.143	0.399	3
Xiehejian Station	0.218	0.111	0.337	4
Qianjuntai Mine Station	0.245	0.116	0.321	5
Yexi Station	0.218	0.087	0.285	6
Luopoling Station	0.244	0.095	0.28	7
Datai Mine Station	0.243	0.09	0.27	8
Muchengjian Mine Station	0.249	0.083	0.249	9
Seshufen Station	0.243	0.077	0.241	10
Dingjiatan Station	0.24	0.069	0.224	11
Jiuyuan Station	0.246	0.054	0.181	12

.

The evaluation results of each station according to the TOPSIS model are shown in the table above, and the overall ranking from highest to lowest is Mentougou Station, Luliqu Station, Wangpingcun Mine Station, Xiehejian Station, Qianjuntai Mine Station, Yexi Station, Luopoling Station, Datai Mine Station, Muchengjian Mine Station, Seshufen Station, Dingjatan Station, and Jiuyuan Station.

On the basis of the classification of development suitability level at home and abroad, combined with the results of the comprehensive score of relative proximity $C$ calculated by the model in this paper, the station development importance is divided into three levels, namely, key development, secondary key development, and protective development, and the 12 stations are divided into three groups according to the ranking order, etc. Rank 1–4 Mentougou Station, Luliqu Station, Wangpingcun Mine Station and Xiehejian Station are key development; rank 5–8 Qianjuntai Mine Station, Yexi Station, Luopoling Station and Datai Mine Station are sub-focus development; rank 9–12 Muchengjian Mine Station, Seshufen Station, Dingjiatan Station and Jiuyuan Station are protected development, and, combined with the reality of the situation, is divided into new stations and existing stations, the specific development level is as follows(

Table 3. Site development level table.

Development Level	Site Name	Existing/New
Focused Development	Mentougou Station (0.709)	Already have
	Luliqu Station (0.491)	New
	Wangpingcun Mine Station (0.399)	New
	Xiehejian Station (0.337)	New
Sub-focused development	Qianjuntai Mine Station (0.321)	New
	Yexi Station (0.288)	Already have
	Lopo Ling Station (028)	Already have
	Datai Mine Station (0.27)	Already have
Conservation or partial development	Muchengjian Mine Station (0.249)	Already have
	Seshufen Station (0.241)	Already have
	Dingjiatan Station (0.224)	Already have
	Jiuyuan Station (0.188)	New

).

The 12 stations along the railroad are divided into three major sections according to regions, namely the East region, Central region and West region, with each region containing four stations. Overall, the overall score is decreasing from east to west, with three key development sites and one secondary key development in the eastern region; one key development and three protected developments in the central region; and zero key development sites, three secondary key development and one protected development site in the western region(Figure 3). The eastern area is close to downtown Beijing, and the area is more urbanized compared to the areas where other stations are located, and there are more tourist attractions and traditional villages. In the central region, Wangpingcun Mine Station has a legacy mine and a traditional village. However, the other stations in the central region lack their own characteristics and advantages, and after the entropy method has given weight to them, the advantageous items take up less weight; thus, resulting in lower scores for all of them. The western region is rich in mining heritage and has more tourism resources and traditional villages deep in the mountains, so it has more unique advantages compared with other sites, and the weighting is relatively higher after using the entropy method.

3.2. Analysis of TOPSIS Evaluation Index Layer Results

The development of the site needs to be compared horizontally and vertically; from only the comprehensive score of the development level the advantages of each site is not known, and this needs to be combined with the evaluation of each secondary index layer comparison; from the secondary index layer point to point starting from the actual situation of the site for deeper analysis, so as to select the advantages of each site, for further and better decision making.

3.2.1. Natural Potential Score Analysis

The natural potential scores of each site of the Menda Railway are shown in the

Table 4. Ranking of natural potential scores of railway stations.

Site Name	Positive Ideal Solution Distance D+	Negative Ideal Dissociation D−	Relative Proximity C	Sort Results
Mentougou Station	0.149	0.502	0.771	1
Liuliqu Station	0.208	0.383	0.648	2
Luopoling Station	0.209	0.34	0.619	3
Yexi Station	0.22	0.342	0.609	4
Dingjiatan Station	0.239	0.307	0.562	5
Seshufen Station	0.246	0.286	0.538	6
Wangpingcun Mine Station	0.257	0.272	0.514	7
Jiuyuan Station	0.363	0.179	0.33	8
Datai Mine Station	0.408	0.189	0.317	9
Xiehejian Station	0.414	0.151	0.267	10
Muchengjian Mine Station	0.45	0.163	0.266	11
Qianjuntai Mine Station	0.49	0.151	0.235	12

and from the scores calculated by the model, the sites in the top part of the ranking have a small difference in relative proximity $C$ scores, all scoring above 0.5. The reason for this is due to the influence of their own geographical conditions and man-made environmental development. The overall Yanmenda Railway from east to west urbanization decreases while the vegetation cover is increasing, and at the same time the slope and elevation are also increasing, generally. The sites with lower slope and elevation scores will be compensated in vegetation cover. Combined with the score of similar proximity C, the stations with higher-than-average scores are, from highest to lowest, Mentougou Station, Luliqu Station, Yexi Station, Dingjiatan Station, Seshufen Station, and Wangpingcun Mine Station. All of the above sites can be developed in a natural environment or combined with natural conditions for tourism stations.

3.2.2. Mining Heritage Potential Score Analysis

The following table shows the mine culture potential scores of each station of the Menda Railway (

Table 5. Ranking of mining heritage potential scores of railway stations.

Site Name	Positive Ideal Solution Distance D+	Negative Ideal Dissociation D−	Relative Proximity C	Sort Results
Wangpingcun Mine Station	0.141	0.643	0.82	1
Datai Mine Station	0.256	0.482	0.653	2
Muchengjian Mine Station	0.256	0.482	0.653	3
Mentougou Station	0.289	0.512	0.639	4
Qianjuntai Mine Station	0.446	0.433	0.493	5
Liuliqu Station	0.578	0.422	0.422	6
Seshufen Station	0.51	0.359	0.413	7
Yexi Station	0.643	0.141	0.18	8
Luopoling Station	0.616	0.101	0.141	9
Xiehejian Station	0.716	0	0	10
Dingjiatan Station	0.716	0	0	10
Jiuyuan Station	0.716	0	0	10

). Combined with the score of similar proximity $C$, the stations with higher-than-average scores are, from highest to lowest, Wangpingcun Mine Station, Datai Mine Station, Muchengjian Mine Station, Mentougou Station, Qianjuntai Mine Station and Luliqu Station, while the scores of other stations are generally low and not suitable for mine themed development. Combined with the site environment around the door of the railroad, the stations with high scores have mines or large characteristic factories nearby, which is the unique competitive advantage and development direction of the site, so the above sites with high scores can be combined with “One Line and Four Mines”, which is the theme of “industrial civilization” mainly for the development of the site.

3.2.3. Social Potential Score Analysis

From the results of the social potential data, the site extension railroad scores from east to west in order from high to low (

Table 6. Ranking of social potential scores of railway stations.

Site Name	Positive Ideal Solution Distance D+	Negative Ideal Dissociation D−	Relative Proximity C	Sort Results
Mentougou Station	0	0.588	1	1
Liuliqu Station	0.327	0.266	0.449	2
Yexi Station	0.467	0.155	0.25	3
Xiehejian Station	0.481	0.154	0.242	4
Dingjiatan Station	0.499	0.116	0.189	5
Jiuyuan Station	0.542	0.048	0.081	6
Seshufen Station	0.558	0.032	0.055	7
Wangpingcun Mine Station	0.562	0.033	0.055	7
Luopoling Station	0.572	0.023	0.039	9
Datai Mine Station	0.578	0.016	0.026	10
Muchengjian Mine Station	0.581	0.011	0.019	11
Qianjuntai Mine Station	0.588	0	0	12

). The reason for this is that the eastern region is more urbanized close to Beijing, while the western region is deep in the mountains and forests, with poor population mobility and few service facilities. The relative proximity $C$ score of Mentougou Station is 1, indicating that the station is stronger than other stations in all aspects of social potential and has unique and outstanding service or commercial advantages. Combined with the score of similar proximity $C$, the stations with higher-than-average scores are, from highest to lowest, Mentougou, Luliqu, Yexi, Xiehejian and Dingjatan, which can be developed in conjunction with service or commercial aspects.

3.2.4. Traffic Potential Score Analysis

The traffic potential scores of each station of the Menda Railway are shown in the

Table 7. Ranking of traffic potential scores of railway stations.

Site Name	Positive Ideal Solution Distance D+	Negative Ideal Dissociation D−	Relative Proximity C	Sort Results
Xiehejian Station	0.292	0.369	0.558	1
Luopoling Station	0.319	0.359	0.529	2
Mentougou Station	0.35	0.371	0.514	3
Liuliqu Station	0.378	0.252	0.4	4
Yexi Station	0.426	0.163	0.277	5
Dingjiatan Station	0.437	0.123	0.22	6
Datai Mine Station	0.477	0.121	0.202	7
Wangpingcun Mine Station	0.459	0.107	0.189	8
Seshufen Station	0.46	0.102	0.181	9
Qianjuntai Mine Station	0.5	0.107	0.176	10
Jiuyuan Station	0.465	0.096	0.172	11
Muchengjian Mine Station	0.498	0.06	0.108	12

, and the polarization is more obvious from the relative proximity $C$ score. Combined with the score of similar proximity $C$, the stations with higher-than-average scores are, from highest to lowest, Xiehejian Station, Luopoling Station and Mentougou Station have higher scores, and there is a large gap between the scores of the latter stations. The reason behind their scores is that the Mentougou Station has a better traffic potential score due to its high urbanization, while the Lopo Ling and Xiehejian stations are relatively westward because they are still served by trains and have passenger pick-up services. All of these stations can take advantage of this aspect and combine with the traffic hub to create unique advantages. It is suggested that the site should be developed with the service nature or traffic transit nature.

3.2.5. Tourism Potential Score Analysis

The tourism potential scores of each station of the Menda Railway are shown in the

Table 8. Ranking of tourism potential scores of railway stations.

Site Name	Positive Ideal Solution Distance D+	Negative Ideal Dissociation D−	Relative Proximity C	Sort Results
Liuliqu Station	0.127	0.565	0.816	1
Mentougou Station	0.171	0.499	0.745	2
Wangpingcun Mine Station	0.294	0.522	0.639	3
Qianjuntai Mine Station	0.353	0.514	0.592	4
Xiehejian Station	0.37	0.282	0.433	5
Jiuyuan Station	0.39	0.25	0.39	6
Yexi Station	0.404	0.227	0.36	7
Dingjiatan Station	0.54	0.206	0.277	8
Seshufen Station	0.566	0.143	0.202	9
Datai Mine Station	0.592	0.138	0.189	10
Muchengjian Mine Station	0.617	0.029	0.045	11
Luopoling Station	0.623	0.027	0.041	12

. Combined with the score of similar proximity $C$, the stations with higher-than-average scores are, from highest to lowest, Luliqu Station, Mentougou Station, Wangpingcun Mine Station and Qianjuntai Mine Station, which can be considered for development in combination with tourist attractions or traditional villages. Among them, Liuliqu Station, Muchengjian Mine Station and Wangpingcun Mine Station have traditional villages, which can be developed around the theme of “traditional culture and rural revitalization” of “One Line and Four Mines” to give full play to their unique advantages.

3.3. Development Classification Analysis and Recommendations

3.3.1. Classification of Development Objectives

The above-mentioned indicators of each site are displayed in bar graphs and radar charts, as shown in the Figure 4 and Figure 5, which can more intuitively see the strengths and weaknesses of each site, and can provide decision-making reference for the site to further create the goal of “one stop, one view”.

The above section compares the strengths and weaknesses of each site with statistics, suggests development of each site’s strengths, and rectifies or avoids the development of the weaknesses. The suggestions given are (1) the sites with low natural potential scores avoid the development of natural landscape direction as much as possible, and the sites with high scores can be developed in combination with “Natural scenery protection and development type”; (2) the remaining mining heritage of the Menda railway line site is the feature of development, and the sites with higher scores of mining heritage potential can be developed as “Mining heritage type” in combination with local features; (3) areas with high social potential scores can be developed selectively according to the local situation, combining other aspects of the local area with “Commercial service type” development; (4) sites with good traffic potential can be developed as “Traffic hub type”, while areas with low traffic potential scores are recommended to strengthen the construction of traffic facilities to provide people with a good travel experience as much as possible; (5) areas with high tourism potential scores can be developed as “Resorts tourism-led type”, using nearby scenic spots to drive the development of the area near the site.(

Table 9. Analysis of advantages and disadvantages of railroad site development evaluation based on “one line and four mines” and suggestions.

Site	Advantages	Development Direction Proposal
Mentougou Station	Natural potential Mining heritage potential Social potential Traffic potential Tourism potential	“Natural scenery protection and development type” “Mining heritage type “ “Commercial service type” “Traffic hub type” “Resorts tourism-led type”
Liuliqu Station	Natural potential Mining heritage potential Social potential Traffic potential Tourism potential	“Natural scenery protection and development type” “Mining heritage type “ “Commercial service type” “Traffic hub type” “Resorts tourism-led type”
Yexi Station	Natural potential, Social potential Tourism potential	“Natural scenery protection and development type” “Commercial service type” “Resorts tourism-led type”
Xiehejian Station	Social potential Traffic potential Tourism potential	“Commercial service type” “Traffic hub type” “Resorts tourism-led type”
Dingjiatan Station	Natural potential	“Natural scenery protection and development type”
Jiuyuan Station	Tourism potential	“Resorts tourism-led type”
Seshufen Station	Natural potential Mining heritage potential	“Natural scenery protection and development type” “Mining heritage type”
Wangpingcun Mine Station	Natural potential Mining heritage potential Tourism potential	“Natural scenery protection and development type” “Mining heritage type”
Luopoling Station	Natural potential Traffic potential	“Natural scenery protection and development type” “Traffic hub type”
Datai Mine Station	Mining heritage potential	“Mining heritage type”
Muchengjian Mine Station	Mining heritage potential	“Mining heritage type”
Qianjuntai Mine Station	Mining heritage potential, Tourism potential	“Mining heritage type” “Resorts tourism dominant”

)

The advantages and disadvantages of each site in the above table are different, each site has its own unique characteristics, combined with the advantages and disadvantages of the site to do the development of the strengths and weaknesses, while the development of proposals appropriate in the site combined with each other and the actual situation, to create a unique “one stop, one view” of the door big railroad tourism line.

3.3.2. Additional Site Development Suggestions

For the above-mentioned sites in terms of advantages and disadvantages, the following recommendations are based on some of the additional sites.

Luliqu Station belongs to the key development site, and there is a large amount of Beijing glaze production near Liuliqu, and the glaze production in the area has a long history, being a thousand-year-old village that has experienced five dynasties: Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing. In the fourth year of Yuan Zhongtong, the imperial court set up the Liuli Bureau, a management agency for burning glazed products, here, and later built an aqueduct to this area, which was renamed as the Liuli Ditch after liberation [26]. At the same time, the ancient village has preserved a good spatial form of a traditional village. The village has preserved the complete scale of Liuli manufacturers’ mansions, the ruins of the ancient road of Xishan Avenue and dozens of sets of Qing Dynasty residential compounds and other architectural relics, and Liuliqu Village is famous as the hometown of Liuli, and is known as “the hometown of Chinese royal Liuli”. Therefore, the development proposals for Luliqu Station are as follows.

(1)

Build the site in the direction of the traditional village with the theme of “glazing”.

(2)

Fuse into the traditional glaze factory to create a small museum or learning base to experience glaze manufacturing and glaze knowledge popularization.

(3)

Addition of tourism service infrastructure, such as accommodation and catering, and appropriate development of commercial and service industries.

There are more tourist attractions near the Xiehejian Station, and the area is more accessible, so it is possible to reach the nearby attractions more quickly, and the railroad station at Xiehejian Station is still in use and provides passenger services, and there are trains from Beijing directly to Xiehejian Station, so the traffic in the area is more convenient. Having both traffic and tourism advantages, the following recommendations are given.

(1)

Site development as a tourist site with a focus on scenic tourism.

(2)

As a traffic hub, it enables visitors to reach this place by different means, and travel to this place by green train to better feel the mood of the historical railroad.

Jiuyuan Station has a low overall score because it has no more outstanding features in all aspects, so it is a protected development site. The natural scenery of Jiuyuan Village is very beautiful, and there is the former residence of Ma Zhiyuan, a great dramatist in the Yuan Dynasty of China, within the small village of Xiluipo in Jiuyuan Village. At the same time, the site is near more villages, compared with its own indicators, tourism compared to other aspects is the advantage of the Jiuyuan Station itself, and closer to the traditional village. At the same time, the nearby traffic conditions and population density is also higher compared to other stations with traditional villages, using the above advantages, the following recommendations are given.

(1)

Development of traditional villages, mainly the former residence of Ma Zhiyuan.

(2)

The integration of tourist attractions in traditional villages to help revitalize the countryside has made the village of Jiuyuan a great show.

(3)

the Jiuyuan sauerkraut for the local specialties; increase efforts to promote specialties, with specialties to drive development.

Wangpingcun Mine station belongs to the key development site, the station near the Wangpingcun Mine, the mine is relatively intact and the natural scenery of the site is good. Although the Wangpingcun Mine is abandoned, the mine is in a semi-open state where visitors will be able to go in and out at will on sightseeing adventure; there are a lot of tourists to the Wangpingcun Mine to explore the tourist card, making the mine famous and popular on the network, as shown in the Figure 6. Based on the Wangpingcun Mine station score and the current situation of the site, the following recommendations are given.

(1)

Use the buildings of the original mine to transform into a museum to strengthen the promotion of mining heritage.

(2)

Use the natural potential of the bend of the Yongding River to add a straight-line connection from the station to the Yongding River.

(3)

Nearby tourist attractions are rich, such as the ancient, traditional mining culture, Wangpingcun Minekou and other historical heritage, the distance is close and convenient to reach; for people to better feel the close connection between the mining industry and the culture of the ancient road in western Beijing, the development of Wangpingcun Mine station to add bicycle rental and other stations.

Qianjuntai Mine Station, as the terminal station, has the traditional village of Qianjuntai Mine, which was built before the Song Dynasty and used to be the border between the Han Dynasty and the northern nationality. During the anti-Japanese War, the villagers of Qianjuntai Mine actively fought against the war and were heroes, and nowadays, there are still more than 110 households and 200 people in Qianjuntai Mine who are staying in this ancient mountain village. The site not only has a traditional village, but also has a rich mining heritage, including a mine cave connected to the mine of Muchengjian Mine Station and a base based on the transformation of the mine, etc. Therefore, the following recommendations are given to Qianjuntai Mine Station.

(1)

Develop mainly traditional villages to create the history of Qianjuntai Mine from war to mining Qianjuntai Mine’s development history.

(2)

Integration into the mining cultural heritage can be merged with the surrounding mining industry Daanshan mine together to strengthen the attractiveness of the mining culture. Take advantage of its linkage to further development of traffic to strengthen the linkage with the Daanshan mine. Thus, the mining culture will be deeply integrated into it.

(3)

There are more tourist attractions nearby, and the development of tourist attractions while taking advantage of their natural conditions to develop skiing, adventure and other tourism activities.

4. Conclusions and Outlook

This paper adopts the TOPSIS model, combined with the actual situation of the Menda Railway, from the engineering target direction, the same time indicator layer corresponds to each target direction; from the natural potential, mining heritage potential, social potential, traffic potential, tourism potential, five primary indicators and 15 secondary indicators, and the decision analysis of 12 stations of the Menda Railway. At the same time, to achieve “In order to achieve the task of “one station, one scene””, we try to find the advantages and disadvantages and unique competitiveness of 12 stations from five index levels, and give suggestions for the development of corresponding stations. The experimental results show that the method is able to accomplish the above work well, not only to complete the measurement of site importance under the existing target direction, but also to make decisions on the direction of each site suitable for development, and to visualize the data to show and analyze the characteristics of each site more intuitively, providing a way of thinking for railroad site development decisions. In addition to the above-mentioned focus on the abandoned railroad station tourism from the horizontal and vertical dimensions, the results of the TOPSIS model are extended to the numerical value itself, and the existing situation of each station is combined to give each station development suggestions. At the same time, the above findings are innovative for the study of site development importance decision and advantages and disadvantages selection. In addition to the above focus on the abandoned railway station tourism from both horizontal and vertical dimensions, the results of the TOPSIS model are also extended to the value itself, and the development suggestions of each station are given according to the existing situation of each station. The disadvantage is that, due to the limitation of the data type of the model, the subjectivity of the selection of indicators is difficult to avoid, and the selection of indicators is not universal. This study makes recommendations and decisions based on the site development problem of the Menda Railway, and in the future, the corresponding indicator system can be further constructed by combining the levels of indicators that are difficult to quantify, and further exploration of the site development level decision and the selection of advantages and disadvantages can be made.