scholarly journals Theorizing nation-building through high-speed rail development: Hegemony and space in the Basque Country, Spain

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110617
Author(s):  
Diego García-Mejuto
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Basque Country ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
High Speed Rail ◽  
State Action ◽  
Rail Line ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
A Site

Despite a variegated body of academic work on nation-building and rail infrastructures, attention to the relationship between nation-building and wider processes of economic and political restructuring and an explicit and theoretically robust consideration of space have been largely missing. This paper seeks to address both limitations by advancing a spatially sensitive conceptualization of how rail infrastructures may be used as a tool for nation-building in contemporary capitalist societies. Particularly, I draw on Jessop's strategic-relational approach to the state and on theoretical contributions on the spatiality of social relations to propose the synthetic notion of ‘spatial hegemonic vision’ to explain the legitimacy and substantive coherence of state action, argue for the inherent spatiality of nation-building projects, and facilitate a theoretically robust and nuanced understanding of such spatiality. I further distinguish between political economic and cultural dimensions in nation-building and discuss the materialization and imagining of specific configurations of territories, places, scales and networks involved in spatial hegemonic visions. This conceptualization is then applied to the development of a high-speed rail line in the Spanish region of the Basque Country. This line has been mobilized to advance two competing yet partially compatible spatial hegemonic visions, whilst becoming itself a site where they came into conflict. The paper concludes by examining the validity of the proposed conceptualization and discussing its applicability to other contemporary cases of nation-building through transport infrastructures.

scholarly journals A Fuzzy Optimization Model for High-Speed Railway Timetable Rescheduling

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Wang ◽  
Yong Qin ◽  
Jie Xu ◽  
Limin Jia
Keyword(s):  
Optimization Model ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Fuzzy Optimization ◽  
Soft Constraints ◽  
Accurate Approximation ◽  
Total Delay ◽  
High Speed Rail ◽  
High Speed Railway ◽  
Tolerance Approach ◽  
Rail Line

A fuzzy optimization model based on improved symmetric tolerance approach is introduced, which allows for rescheduling high-speed railway timetable under unexpected interferences. The model nests different parameters of the soft constraints with uncertainty margin to describe their importance to the optimization purpose and treats the objective in the same manner. Thus a new optimal instrument is expected to achieve a new timetable subject to little slack of constraints. The section between Nanjing and Shanghai, which is the busiest, of Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line in China is used as the simulated measurement. The fuzzy optimization model provides an accurate approximation on train running time and headway time, and hence the results suggest that the number of seriously impacted trains and total delay time can be reduced significantly subject to little cost and risk.

Railway Territorialities

Transfers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 230-249
Author(s):  
Mateusz Laszczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
High Speed Rail ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Traffic Corridor ◽  
Transnational Space

This article examines transportation infrastructures’ capacity to produce and transform social space through a focus on the contested history of railway development in Valsusa, Italy. I draw on participant observation and interviews with local residents and activists during ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2015. I first describe how railways helped form modern sociality in Valsusa in the twentieth century. Subsequently, I explore contrasting topological effects of a projected high-speed rail through the valley. For planners envisioning a trans-European space of exchange, the railway is a powerful way to “shrink” space; for local residents, this implies reducing Valsusa to a traffic “corridor.” Yet their protest generates new social relations and knowledges, giving rise to a notion of “territory” as unbound and connected to a transnational space of resistance to capitalist expansion.

Railway Territorialities

Transfers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 230-249
Author(s):  
Mateusz Laszczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
High Speed Rail ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Traffic Corridor ◽  
Transnational Space

Abstract This article examines transportation infrastructures’ capacity to produce and transform social space through a focus on the contested history of railway development in Valsusa, Italy. I draw on participant observation and interviews with local residents and activists during ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2015. I first describe how railways helped form modern sociality in Valsusa in the twentieth century. Subsequently, I explore contrasting topological effects of a projected high-speed rail through the valley. For planners envisioning a trans-European space of exchange, the railway is a powerful way to “shrink” space; for local residents, this implies reducing Valsusa to a traffic “corridor.” Yet their protest generates new social relations and knowledges, giving rise to a notion of “territory” as unbound and connected to a transnational space of resistance to capitalist expansion.

Who Rides These Things?

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack E. Heiss
Keyword(s):  
High Speed ◽  
Market Demand ◽  
Market Information ◽  
High Speed Rail ◽  
Development Patterns ◽  
Trip Purpose ◽  
Passenger Rail ◽  
Rail Line ◽  
Market Capture ◽  
Investment Grade

While planners and politicians alike go about kicking the tires of various trains, and traveling abroad on fact-finding missions about HSR, the question remains whether Americans will patronize high-speed rail in sufficient number to justify the investment. A common practice is to identify an existing or abandoned rail line as the candidate route that connects population centers, identify the former stations for rehabilitation, select a technology, and then perform an investment-grade ridership study to determine whether sufficient revenues will be generated. This approach may prove sufficient in the upgrading of an existing conventional service, or re-establishing a previous service in those areas of the country with a long history of passenger rail. When approaching newer developed areas such as the Sunbelt cities, the inter-relationship of development patterns and fixed-guideway passenger services is not established. Those development patterns were influenced by the automobile, not by guideway-based transportation. A different approach is needed when history is not a guide. While the selection of the population centers to be served at the outset is appropriate and makes for a basic identification of the market to be served, it does not reveal the actual destinations that are interest to the travelers. The next step is to more thoroughly investigate travel between those points. That investigation should include surveys to determine trip purpose, identify the main attractors in the markets, the demographics of the travelers and how time is valued by the travelers. Finally, estimates must be made of the absolute numbers of those traveling. Additionally, examination of the current travel patterns through the patronage of existing services can provide clues to the market demand. The acquisition of this market information then allows the planners to design a transportation product that will appeal to the potential customers and make a determination of potential revenue. Even when certain parameters of a system are set because of geography or availability of infrastructure, market information can guide improvements to maximize market capture. This paper will examine those data that are important to a high-speed rail plan and how some system decisions directly affect the ability of the transportation product offered to satisfy the needs of the traveling public. “Build it and they will come” cannot be trusted to repay the massive investment required by high-speed rail.

On the Usefulness of a Combined Mode Choice-Schedule Choice Model: Case of the Paris–Bordeaux Rail Line (France)

2019 ◽  
Vol 2673 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-707
Author(s):  
Minghui Chen ◽  
Stéphanie Souche Le Corvec
Keyword(s):  
High Speed ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Mode Choice ◽  
Discrete Choice Models ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
Model Case ◽  
High Speed Rail ◽  
Schedule Delay ◽  
Early Arrival ◽  
Rail Line

The high-speed rail line (HSR) Ligne à Grande Vitesse Sud Europe Atlantique (LGV SEA) was inaugurated and put into operation on July 2, 2017. Since then, a decrease has been observed in air traffic and in air service frequency on the Paris–Bordeaux route. This paper examines the competition between HSR and air transportation services and the influence of this new transport infrastructure on passenger behavior. Using discrete choice models along with data from traveler surveys, an econometric analysis of traveler demand is conducted, dealing jointly with mode choice and schedule choice between Paris and Bordeaux. Results demonstrate that the variables specifically constructed to represent the schedule delay cost are significant, with late arrival generating relatively greater costs compared with early arrival. This model also makes it possible to evaluate the quality of transport timetable proposed by the transportation operators with the help of market share prediction.

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