Spatial Economic Impacts of the TEN-T Network Extension in the Adriatic and Ionian Region

Abstract

Investments in transportation infrastructure have been identified as one of the main factors to promote territorial economic growth. However, appraisal methods currently used in the planning practice do not consider spatial economic distributional effects, ignoring who within a given region would receive greater economic benefits from an investment than others (and eventually who might receive worse). In this paper, a modelling framework is proposed to assess the spatial economic impacts of transportation infrastructure investments; the method combines spatial regressions with transportation accessibility analysis, assuming Gross Domestic Product per Capita variation as a proxy of the economic growth. The application to the case study is related to the Adriatic and Ionian region, which includes both some EU (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Greece) and non-EU countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, and Kosovo) and is characterized by huge disparities in terms of infrastructural assets. The models allow us to both statistically prove the importance of spatial modelling specifications and to forecast economic impacts that would be generated by ongoing infrastructure investment plans for the reconstruction of the road and railway networks in the region; this highlighted where current economic disparities tend to be bridged up, i.e., mainly along the foreseen extensions of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) corridors, and where not.

A Walkability Index including Pedestrians’ Perception of Built Environment: The Case Study of Milano Rogoredo Station

“…The Milano Rogoredo railway station was selected as a case study. Transport infrastructures usually generate spatial impacts [22], and railway stations can indirectly create spatial discontinuity in the urban texture: this is the reason why they are receiving increasing attention and are objective of investments aimed at revamping station buildings, regenerating at the same time surrounding spaces that are often degraded [23][24][25][26]. These investments should be guided by new assessment frameworks (see for instance [27]), that also consider the impacts of redesigned urban spaces on the walkability of areas themselves [28].…”