The European Road and Rail Infrastructure: A Geographical Information System for the History of the European Integration (1825–2005)

Finnish Railways in the Nordic and Russian context (FiRa)

The aim of this project is to study the relationship between development of spatial structure and development railway network accessibility considered with other transport accessibilities. The project consists of empirical research with 1) historical and contemporary perspectives, 2) geographical information systems (GIS) methodological study with purpose to arouse new approaches to analyse transport network based accessibility 3) and relate the spaces of accessibility to dynamics in spatial structure of population. Theoretical background of the study is based on the central-periphery theories reorder within New Economic Geography related to economist Paul Krugman.

The main methods which will be used are within GIS for transportation (GIS-T) with its many analytical methods such as network based analyses and multimodal transportation infrastructure modeling. Population distribution is taken to the main indicator of spatial structure and statistical methods such as generalized additive models (GAMs) are used to analyze the effect of accessibility. Main data consists of geo-referenced population and infrastructure databases. Population data involves municipality level statistical data since the 1880 and 1 x 1 km grid cell data since the 1970. Infrastructure data involves railway network with several attributes such as railway stations since 1862, and accurate road network data Digiroad since in the year 2003 with numerous attributes such as speed limits, road classes etc.

The project has applied nature in developing GIS-T methodology and in programming tools to measure accessibility. Developing potential accessibility analysis and multimodal transport approaches are in the key role. 

Staff

Professor PhD Jarmo Rusanen
Senior GIS Reseacher Ph.Lic. Harri Antikainen
Doctoral Student MSc Ossi Kotavaara
Research assistant MSc Mari Pukkinen

Previous staff

Research assistant MSc Johanna Hätälä
Research assistant MSc Ari Nikula