Assessing the accessibility of urban nodes: the case of TEN-T railway stations in Europe

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper introduces a methodology for assessing urban accessibility to and from railway stations along TEN-T Core Network Corridors, which was developed within the framework of an EU CEF funded project “RAISE-IT” with the aim to offer a simplified but effective way for evaluating the accessibility. The methodology was created in a practical way following the needs of the project partners (i.e. regional and local authorities) that face concrete problems in urban and transport planning. Firstly, it assesses walkability of the urban area within a radius of 800 m from rail stations by evaluating urban design parameters. Secondly, the methodology is characterised by a limited number of disaggregated indicators that gather information on proximity, travel time, costs, etc. for accessing railway stations with different transport modes, i.e. public transport, cycling, sharing mobility, and uses private car accessibility as a baseline for evaluating their performance. The novelty of the methodology lies on two aspects: 1) to recognise the importance of walkability and consider emerging modes of transport such as bike and car sharing; 2) to simplify data collection as the majority of the indicators can be evaluated using online data and tools allowing for their continuous updating and reducing costs. The methodology has been applied to six TEN-T railway nodes along the Rhine-Alpine Corridor and this paper presents results from the case of Düsseldorf. The paper concludes with the assessment of the methodology with considerations on the quantity and availability of required data, its effectiveness, advantages, limitations and transferability.