Hyeongmin Kim (p), Jongho Choi

Most cities are pursuing a variety of policies to better support urban life. In a typical urban city, traffic remains to be one of the biggest contributing factors stifling modern living, as congestion poses a huge problem for accessibility. Public transportation plays a big role in suppressing traffic congestion and more importantly, air pollution. Alternative modes of transportation such as railways also play a role in creating more efficient flows of movement within urban cities.
In six of the largest cities in Korea, urban railways are already operating. In order to make better connections between these major cities, city buses and city railway companies are adopting a policy to reduce the cost of transit by introducing a transfer system. Gwangju Metropolitan City is a local city with 1.48million residents and has operated the Urban Railway Line 1 since 2008. In addition, a second line will be constructed and will be operational starting 2023. This study will investigate how accessibility to urban railways can be improved to better manage traffic congestion and create better flows of transportation between cities overall.
The time range of this study is from 2012 to 2018, which is the period of securing the number of passengers by city railway stations. The spatial range is 20 urban railway stations in Gwangju Metropolitan City. The content area is a spatial characteristic that affects the traffic occurrence of the users approaching the urban railway stations. The purpose of this study is to analyze the spatial characteristics of the transit area and the changes in the number of subway stations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the spatial characteristics that affect the accessibility of urban railway stations through research and to draw implications for the decision of location of additional routes.

Xavier Fageda (p), Cecilia Olivieri

This article examines the contribution of transport infrastructure to regional convergence in Spain for 1980–2008. We employ spatial econometric techniques that decompose the direct, indirect and total effects of roads, railways, ports and airports. In addition, it complements the analysis by estimating the determinants of the regional allocation of transport investments. The evidence confirms the presence of absolute and conditional convergence. However, only roads appear to have an impact on this convergence process. We also find that the main driver of transport investments has been to equalize the infrastructure endowment between the different Spanish regions. The reduction of inequalities between regions in terms of road provision could explain the positive contribution of roads to the process of regional convergence in Spain.

Patricia Melo (p), João de Abreu e Silva

Portugal experienced a massive growth in its motorway network after joining the European Union (EU) in 1986. The chart in Figure 1 shows the evolution of the motorway network. Just before joining the EU, the country’s motorway network had about 200 kms, growing to 409 km in 1991, over 1000 kms in 1998, over 2000 kms in 2003 and reached 3000 kms in 2012, after which it remained stable. The fast expansion of the motorway network during the 1990s and 2000s had several implications on the economic geography of the country. The urban spatial structure has become characterised by growing suburbanization leading simultaneously to an increase in metropolitan area size and urban core decline. Data for the country’s largest metropolitan area, the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML), illustrates this pattern clearly: the share of the city’s population in the total AML population fell from 32% in 1980 to 21% in 2000 and 19% in 2010 (it is 18% in 2017).
In this paper, we investigate the extent to which the expansion of the motorway network contributed to a redistribution of population across the country favoring a pattern of suburbanization of the population and decentralization of employment. We combine SIG-based road network data with census data for population and employment in 1991, 2001, and 2011, and estimate the relationship between the growth of population, employment and motorways at three levels: central city or urban core, suburbs, and overall country’s urban spatial structure. Issues of reverse causality are addressed using different model approaches, including instrumental variables and inconsequential units techniques. Similarly to existing studies for Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the US, the results indicate that motorways contributed to the suburbanization and decentralization of the spatial structure of urban areas, and overall the country, over the period.