A methodology to assess the connectivity caused by a transportation infrastructure: Application to the high-speed rail in Extremadura

High-speed rail (HSR) affects enormously on the territory and provokes intense socio-economic dynamics because it articulates the territory according to the distribution of the accessibility in the settlements. Thus, the easier it would be the access of the residents from a city to another, the better it would be its opportunities of socio-economic development. These effects motivated by the different degree of accessibility produced in the territory are more acute in the less developed regions. In this regard, this work proposes a methodology applicable not only to any place in general, but in this particular case also to Extremadura because this region is the least developed in Spain. This methodology in which importance resides that it is applicable before the physical implantation of the HSR in the territory allows to achieve the following objectives: delivers a judgment if the distribution of the population which will accede to the HSR is balanced, shows the future hierarchical organization of the territory in more or less favoured zones and determines the degree of connection of the region on a national scale with Spain and an international scale with Portugal. This paper is based on the use of tools for network design and the geographic information systems (GIS) and proposes a new indicator of absolute accessibility parameters application, together with the exploitation of information use of the descriptive statistics. The obtained results show how the isolated areas, without adequate access to high-speed service, are going to continue to exist although it diminishes the lack of equity in the different zones of Extremadura, which is the object of study. (C) 2015 World Conference on Transport Research Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.