Transport infrastructure and spatial development in Switzerland between 1950 and 2000

Abstract

This paper focuses on the impact of transport infrastructure on the population change of municipalities and regions. Accessibility is both the primary service provided by transport infrastructure and the link between transport infrastructure and land use. It can be a measure of the spatial impact of newly-built transport infrastructure and it can enhance the attractiveness of a region’s location. A suitable approach for measuring the spatial impact of accessibility is the quantitative method of growth modeling, which accounts for spatial correlation by using OLS models, OLS models corrected for spatial correlations, and multilevel growth models. Multilevel growth models combine an individual level, which represents disaggregate behavior, with a contextual macro level. The following questions were investigated: Where did accessibility change occur, when and how did these changes take place, and to what extent did accessibility change influence spatial development? First results indicate that the influence of accessibility on spatial development differs considerably over time and space: its strength declines the more developed a region becomes and the closer it approaches the present.