Ana Condeço-Melhorado

Integrating Network Analysis with the Production Function Approach to Study the Spillover Effects of Transport Infrastructure

Álvarez-Ayuso I. C., Condeço-Melhorado A. M., Gutiérrez J. and Zofío J. L. Integrating network analysis with the production function approach to study the spillover effects of transport infrastructure, Regional Studies. The production function approach is used to analyse the role of transport infrastructure on regional gross domestic product (GDP) using new definitions and measures of road network capital stock that represent the real benefit obtained by regions when accessing markets. Improving the existing methodologies, the infrastructure stock is weighted with trade data so as to estimate the direct effects on production of a regions own infrastructure (what is termed here ‘internal stock’), as well as the spillover effects that it receives from using that of neighbouring regions (imported stock). The methodology is illustrated by using Spanish data for the 1980–2007 period and these internal and imported infrastructure stocks are calculated using geographical information system (GIS) network analysis based on generalized transportations costs. With this new data set, successive regressions are performed controlling for endogeneity and the obtained results are compared with those of previous research. The validity of this methodology and the existence of significant and rather large spillover effects that even outweigh the effect of the internally endowed capital stock on aggregate production are confirmed. On average, the relative magnitude of the spillover effects to that of the internal (own) stock effect increases with the level of territorial disaggregation, i.e., it is larger for provincial data than for regional data. Unfortunately, it is also found that spillover effects are asymmetric, exhibiting negative values for poorer regions, as they do not profit from the capital stock existing in their neighbouring areas as do their richer counterparts, thereby casting doubts on the cohesion effects attributed to transport infrastructure investments.

Accessibility and Spatial Interaction

The concept of accessibility is linked to the level of opportunities available for spatial interaction (flows of people, goods or information) between a set of locations, through a physical and/or digital transport infrastructure network. Accessibility has proved to be a crucial tool for understanding the framework of sustainability policy in light of best practice planning and decision-making processes. Methods such as cost–benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis and risk analysis can benefit greatly from embedding accessibility results. This book presents a cohesive collection of recent studies, modeling and discussing spatial interaction by means of accessibility indicators

Border effect and market potential: the case of the European Union

The globalization of population and trade flows yielded an increase of interactions within the international framework. Accessibility indicators are especially suited to represent spatial interaction since they capture two basic factors that determine the amount of flows between a set of places: the opportunities available and the infrastructure used to move those flows. While globalization trends contributed to the weakening of borders, several studies confirm that borders still matter in international trade, and play a significant role in the form of home bias, that is, a marked preference for domestic products. Still, most studies of international accessibility ignore this fact, thus failing to show realistic results. This chapter makes use of gravity equations to calibrate the distance decay parameter as well as a new coefficient to control for the border effect in the market potential indicator. We used official trade data at the country level in the European Union (EU) and evaluated different distance metrics in order to obtain a realistic measure of the border effect within the EU. Our results suggest that the border effect in Europe was previously underestimated due to an excessive simplification when measuring distances. While our preliminary results were similar to previous research, once we applied realistic measures of transports cost (either travel time or generalized transport costs) and removed those countries that are highly affected by the Rotterdam effect, we found that European countries trade 15 times more within themselves than with any other European country. Consequently, integrating the effects of borders in accessibility analysis of international scope evidences that the gap between central and peripheral countries is even larger than expected.

Travel speed changes along the European core road network for the period 1960–2030: an application of octilinear cartograms

ABSTRACT This study presents the evolution of travel speeds in the European Core road network, between 1960 and 2030. Speeds are represented in octilinear cartograms which constitutes one of the novelties of this study. Octilinear cartograms have the advantage of simplifying the geographical representation of transport networks, while emphasizing the connections (nodes) and the links between those nodes. The geographical accurateness is no longer important in this type of map; thus, the actual length of links does not correspond to the links real value, directions are roughly preserved and scale factor is not constant for the entire map. Results show a general improvement of speeds in the Core Network. During the first years of the analysed period, speeds increased in Western European countries, while in the latest years, this improvement was extended to peripheral countries. By 2012, travel speeds presented a more homogeneous pattern all over Europe, generally ranging between 100 and 110 km/h. This evolution goes all along with a strong EU investment in the trans-European transport road network. In 2030, travel speeds are expected to continue increasing due to the foreseen investments planned by the European Commission.

Accessibility and spatial interaction: an introduction

The concept of accessibility is linked to the level of opportunities available for spatial interaction (flows of people, goods or information) between a set of locations, through a physical and/or digital transport infrastructure network. Accessibility has proved to be a crucial tool for understanding the framework of sustainability policy in light of best practice planning and decision-making processes. Methods such as cost–benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis and risk analysis can benefit greatly from embedding accessibility results. This book presents a cohesive collection of recent studies, modeling and discussing spatial interaction by means of accessibility indicators