Impact of high-speed railway accessibility on the location choices of office establishments

Abstract

High-speed railways are becoming increasingly common in Europe. In the Netherlands soon the HSL-South will be opened. This high-speed railway line connects the Randstad to Brussels and Paris. A prominent aim of this new railway is to improve international competitiveness of the Netherlands. As a side effect it has also consequences for the distribution of offices within the Netherlands. Especially because also domestic high-speed train services will make use of the new infrastructure. Still, little research has addressed this issue of regional distributive effects. This thesis focuses on the topic how high-speed railway accessibility influences location attractiveness for offices within the Randstad. Telephone inquiries were hold among 297 decision makers of offices. Respondents were also asked to make hypothetical choices between fictitious locations (so-called ‘stated choices’). An analysis of the actual locations of offices in combination with stated choices yielded a model to determine location attractiveness. Within this model the concept of accessibility is central. A new high-speed railway, such as the HSL-South, can drastically reduce travel times between cities, at the expense of higher train fares. If the travel time advantage from an origin to a potential destination exceeds the fare supplement then these locations’ accessibility is improved. A higher accessibility makes a location more attractive. But other, more subjective factors are relevant as well. Regardless of travel times, proximity to a HST station can lead to the perception of a good accessibility. And also, evidence has been found that the availability of high-speed train services at a station can improve the image of this station and its immediate surroundings. But high-speed rail is not equally relevant to all offices. Spatial orientation is a determining factor: offices that have its business contacts distributed nationally or internationally are most influenced by high-speed rail. High-speed train accessibility is, however, rarely a decisive location factor for locating office establishments. Application of the model to different scenarios for the Randstad reveals that Rotterdam and especially Amsterdam (including Schiphol) benefit from the HSL-South. This comes at the cost of other cities in the Randstad. Particularly Utrecht suffers from the new line, because its urban region is traditionally strong in attracting the nationally oriented offices that are also sensitive to high-speed rail. Scenarios for the Zuiderzeelijn have little impact additional to the HSL-South. A specific focus on the Amsterdam urban region illustrates the dependence of the urban development on the specific outline of the high-speed train services. The choice between the South axis and the central station for HSL-South services influences the development potentials of these sites. The results confirm the usefulness of the policy of the Dutch government to support the urban redevelopment projects (‘new key projects’) around high-speed train stations. However, it is argued that policy makers should not have too high expectations for the impact of high-speed on economic development. New offices at a high-speed train station area come predominantly at the expense of a decline of office employment in other cities.