The opening of the new TGV-Est line in Eastern France in 2007, and of the Rhin-Rhône line about 2012 may cause a major disruption in the Eastern railway network. The TGV-Est will link Paris to the eastern regions of France while the Rhin-Rhône line will connect Eastern and Southern regions. The passenger traffic between Lorraine and the South-Est will follow the Toul-Dijon line. We can thus envisage a connexion between the TGV-Est and TGV Rhin-Rhône via the Haute-Saône département in order to improve North-South services. Indeed, European and national traffic use the electrified Toul-Dijon and Metz-Strasbourg-Bâle lines, but they are close to saturation, which issue doesn’t seem to be tackled by national rail administrations. Yet other lines, equipped with thermic traction, do exist. Accordingly, we should reconsider transit through the Haute-Saône département by the equipment of alternative North-South lines so as to open up the region.
Several high speed train stations have been established recently on the outskirts of French urban areas in order to minimize travel time and enhance railway profitability. Even though they allow for interconnexions between several transportation modes, they seem to offer a much lower degree of nodality within the railway network than older central city stations. However, their nodal role should be gauged in terms of function rather than physical infrastructure. Relational capacities of the stations were estimated using topologic direct accessibility graphs and morphological nodality ratings. The network patterns of their rail links allow us to identify several kinds of stations according to their functions: from simple halting points devoid of any nodality to major national railway nodes.
International comparison of port cities is founded on growing spatial and economical similarities between them. Despite the diversity of local and national systems, this article aims at measuring at a global scale, from available data on a sample of 330 nodes, the nature of ongoing trends underlying the complex relationships between urban, port and maritime systems. A factor analysis highlights some fundamental issues linked with port/city opposition, together with various degrees of interdependency to be seen at a regional level.
The purpose of this paper is to wonder about the specificity of set up and evolution of nodality transports network systems in mountain areas. The transalpine route between Grenoble, Bourg-d'Oisans, Briançon and Suse, will be studied as an enlightening example. Including different scales of time (long time run, time of seasons, journey time) and space (great mountain ranges, internal mountain masses, mountain places -touristic stations and sites, natural and national parks...), the model is also integrating verticality context and externalization processes in order to suggest a synthetic system, especially with graphic patterns and design.