Accessibility in European Peripheral Territories: Analyzing the Portuguese Mainland Connectivity Patterns from 1985 to 2020

Abstract

The inner periphery European countries, as is the case of Portugal, are characterized by poor access to essential areas and services of general and social relations. Contextually, this paper aims to explore the linkages between inner peripheries, ultra-peripherality concepts, and the concept of accessibility from 1985 to 2020, in parallel with the analysis of some demographic trends in the same research period. Thus, the study deals with accessibility and the analysis of accessibility-related spatial distribution to represent the traditional core—periphery pattern, with the highest accessibility in the center of the mainland and west coastal area, and the lowest accessibility in remote regions. The results show that the distribution of the road infrastructure is not uniform in Portugal. Furthermore, the NUTS II regions of PT13 Lisboa e Vale do Tejo (the Lisbon region) and PT11 Norte (northern Portugal) have the greatest road per km2. The Lisbon region has the highest concentration of national roads globally, while the northern region has the highest concentration of municipal roads. These two regions are, by far, the most densely populated, encompassing about ¾ of the national population and GDP.

Spatial Analysis of Territorial Connectivity and Accessibility in the Province of Coclé in Panama

“…Accessibility and connectivity in the province of Coclé present characteristics identified in previous studies, such as the following: the configuration of the transportation infrastructure is a critical factor in determining accessibility [78]; the core of the largest cities is surrounded by places with the highest level of accessibility, as shown by the growth of the network [12]; the road infrastructure is not homogeneous between towns [79]; and the Pan-American Highway is an important dynamic axis [80] that shapes accessibility and connectivity in Coclé.…”

Multimodal Evaluation of Changes in National Potential Passenger and Freight Accessibility during the EU-Driven Big Push to Transport Infrastructure

“…The accession of new countries to the European Union has usually been associated with the intensive development of transport infrastructure and an improvement in accessibility. This was particularly the case with the 2004, 2007 and 2013 enlargements [1][2][3][4][5][6], but also with earlier ones, including Spain [7][8][9], Portugal [10][11][12] and Greece [13]. Most of the aforementioned studies focused on changes in accessibility concerning one selected mode of transport.…”

Measuring Access to Services of General Interest as a Diagnostic Tool to Identify Well-Being Disparities between Rural Areas in Europe

“…The notion of Inner peripheries (IP) derives from the conventional concept of 'peripherality', which focuses just on the geographic position of a region in relation to all centres of economic activity in Europe. By way of consequence, studies analysing 'peripheral regions' often focus on geographically remote regions, see, for example, [57,58]. Much more complex, the IP concept includes a wider sense of 'disconnection' in relation to core areas and global economic circuits.…”