Page 167 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Which way to the city centre? Pedestrian itineraries between High Speed Rail stations and historic
centres. Assessing urban quality and tourist behaviour through GPS tracks in Toledo.

The aim of the article is to identify which of these itineraries is more used by tourists, and to
assess its physical characteristics linked with its walkability in order to check whether they are
relevant in terms of the path’s election. The GPS tracks shared by tourists in social networks
like wikiloc have been used to identify which are the tourist itineraries throughout the city.
Then, the walkability of itineraries has been assessed and compared.
The pedestrian paths in these small and medium cities with edge HSR stations are a key factor
for both tourists arriving to the city and residents commuting (or just travelling) by HSR. An
adequate, readable and comfortable itinerary will enhance the experience of the former and
will promote a sustainable transport mode for the latter. In many cases, the huge investments
of HSR construction are not accompanied by small expenditures in urban space enhancements
in order to provide a comfortable pedestrian access.
2. Background

2.1 HSR stations and tourist itineraries

One of the main issues on HSR is the way in which cities are served by stations (Garmendia, et
al., 2012). As Bertolini and Split (1998) identified, train stations perform a twofold role. First,
from the transport approach, stations can be considered as nodal points, where the resulting
level of HSR service is of great importance. Second, from the urban approach, stations constitute
a landmark in the city. In the case of HSR, stations are often the pretext for ambitious urban
(renewal) projects and developments. The role of the historic train stations as “gate of the
city”, which had been overshadowed by the expansion of freeways and airports, is strengthened
by HSR stations (Mannone, 1997).
In order to assess both the impact of a HSR station and the strategies developed by cities
to make the most of the new infrastructure, literature on HSR stations establishes different
typologies of HSR stations (Troin, 1995; Bellet et al., 2012). These classifications consider
different criteria: if the station is new or an adaptation to HSR; the location of the station in
relation to the city; and the relevance of the station as a transportation node. However, the key
factor that has an influence on the urban development of the city is the location of the station
(Ureña, et al., 2012).
When analyzing small and medium cities, Menéndez et al. (2002) consider three types of
stations: central, city-edge, and peripheral. Given their weaker position, edge or peripheral
settings are more common, making urban projects more difficult to succeed, especially in
peripheral settings (Auphan, 1992; Troin, 1995). Literature on the latter has focused mainly on
the tertiary or residential developments around HSR stations (Ribalaygua, 2005) and, taking
into account their isolated situation, on the connection of these stations to the city center
and to the historic train stations. This is the case of France, where new peripheral stations are
built for long distance HSR services, and old conventional stations maintain regional and some
of the HSR services (Facchinetti-Mannone & Richer, 2011). Finally, edge settings take advantage
of the lesser dense urban fabric of the city outskirts, which allows for urban development
projects around the station although the urban pattern continuity between the station and city
is guaranteed.
HSR intermodal opportunities have been studied from three different scales. From a national
and regional scale, the opportunities of HSR/conventional rail and HSR/air connections have
been assessed (Chapelon & Bozzani, 2003; López-Pita & Robusté, 2004; Givoni, 2006). From
a local scale, the literature has focused on the station-city connections. When the station
is central, the connection between the station and the transit network is a principal issue
(Peters, 2010), while in the peripheral ones specific shuttle services are necessary to assure
the connection (Facchinetti-Mannone & Richer, 2011; Menéndez, et al, 2006). In addition, the

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