Page 260 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Bautista Rodríguez, David. Ortuño Padilla, Armando.Fernández Aracil, Patricia.
Sánchez Galiano, Juan Carlos. Mompó Guerra, Antonio.

1. Introduction

The study is carried out in the city centre of Alicante city, the capital of a Province located in
the south-east of Spain. The population of Alicante is about 330.000 inhabitants and half million
including its metropolitan area (INE, 2017).

Regarding socioeconomic activities in the city, it is prominent in the services sector, having
more than the 65% of active population and 133.104 companies working in it; industry and
construction sectors employ 22% and around 65.500 companies (INE, 2017).
Overall, we can say that the Alicante is a medium-sized city engaged mainly in the services
sector, being tourist activity very intense.
As for high-speed rail in Alicante city, it first arrived in 2013 offering 18 services. The demand
studies predicted that it would be one of the busiest lines in Spain. The line saves around an
hour compared with the previous conventional services. Thus, after the first year, the number
of passengers increased up to 1,732,000 (renfe, 2014).

Along with the introduction of high-speed rail, the city planned to bury the tracks. Nowadays,
this project is focused on suggesting ways to integrate land use and mobility based on TOD
model and TOD standard guide in a most effective manner.
For that purpose, the actual area measuring TOD parameters working in the field is being studied.
Then, keeping in mind the social and cultural situation of the city, the evaluation and actions to
be taken on the area around the high-speed rail station are being developed and planned.

It is important to note that this project is one of many other that have been carried out regarding the
arrival of high-speed rail to the city, including studies of demand, passenger profile, economic impact, etc.

2. State of the art

2.1 Description of the study area

The urban area around the high-speed rail station is a consolidated urban area for more than
30 years. The built area is around 5.000 m and the buildings include 5 to 8 level blocks with
2
commercial premises on the ground floors and private houses above. There is a predominance
of residential use but there are lots of offices near the avenues. Besides, the main commercial
streets are near the station and some equipment can be found. This area is one of the densest
in the city and offers almost all types of shops and services.

As for the surrounding streets, some of them have been recently refurbished, improving the quality
of the area. In some cases, the pavements have been widened, giving then more space to the
pedestrians.

Figure 1: City centre of Alicante with the high-speed rail station. Source: Google Maps.

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