DOCTORAL THESIS ABSTRACT: “EFFECT OF HIGH SPEED LINES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MADRID-CASTILLA LA MANCHA-VALENCIAN COMMUNITY-MURCIA CORRIDOR.”

Author: Armando Ortuño Padilla
Director: D. Antonio Serrano Rodríguez
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 2009

The purpose of the thesis is to foresee the regional impact of high-speed rail on the Madrid-Levante (Madrid-Castilla La Mancha-Valencian Community-Murcia) Corridor by 2021.
The focus of this development lies in the arrival of new railway services to the Corridor according to the planned extension of the railway network across a large part of the Spanish and European landscape.

The effect of high-speed train in countries where it has been available for decades, such as Japan, France or even Spain, through the Madrid-Seville line since 1992, has been emphasized in numerous cases, demonstrating that its appearance has led to the remodelling of city systems, hierarchic relationships, etc. Precisely, the final objective of the research is the prognosis of the future city system, as a significant element of changes produced in the regional system, from the expected impact of high-speed rail along the Corridor.

Accordingly, the thesis aims to answer questions such as:
1	Will the implementation of high-speed services be adequate to encourage tourism? Will the impact be similar on the different tourism development models; namely, residential and hotel tourism, and even cultural or rural tourism?
2	Can high-speed rail contribute to stimulating areas in decline or those with migratory problems?
3	Will high-speed rail revitalize a decaying production sub-sector with great historic importance such as manufacturing?

The answer is that the impact on the development of infrastructure, especially on the railway network, will only materialize under certain conditions, which do not depend solely upon this infrastructure, but rather on the set of “potentials” and “relative comparative advantages or disadvantages” of each region. Social agents with the capacity to influence such region given the set of potentials and different relative advantages or disadvantages decide upon its transformation. Therefore, different results are found in different territories with different levels of response from such social agents.

In this framework, even though the research takes into account regional aspects, the main contribution lies in the approach to the effects on development at the local level, like the effects of the conventional railway throughout its history. In turn, from what can be extrapolated from this historic reference, we can learn what to expect from the future appearance of high-speed rail, bearing in mind, according to the contrasted hypothesis, the influence on the development of other variables, e.g., demographic and productive, the physical context, allocation of resources, accessibility or the administrative factor, among others.

In order to carry out this approach, in addition to experience from the effects of infrastructure on Corridor development and the current and future socioeconomic characterization, the abovementioned national and international experiences in this regard will be considered.