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Perspectives of territorial development linked to the future high-performance rail lines in Eastern
Andalusia.

- The exception could be the case of Algeciras in the province of Cadiz, only linked to
the provincial capital by road and a recently built highway, where the improved rail link
will reinforce its relations in the contrary direction towards Eastern Andalusia. A certain
integration between Guadix and Almeria -just half an hour distant- is also possible, but this
city remains a little closer to its provincial capital.
- In the province of Granada, given the reduced travel time between the capital and the cities
of Loja and Guadix, the reinforcement of metropolitan relationships between them, and the
incorporation of these two populations of a circle of medium cities around the provincial
capital (Cabrera, 2010), to the present metropolitan area of Granada will be clear.

- The relation with the national capital will be highly increased for business, and there will be
numerous, often day return, journeys, as all the Andalusian capitals will be situated from 2
to 3.5 hours’ rail travel time to Madrid.
For the remote scenario the new connections will probably give rail access to the littoral
relevant populations of Almeria, Granada and Malaga provinces such as El Ejido, Motril, or Velez
Malaga-Torredelmar, and inner populations of Granada province such as Baza. Some of these
will be firstly connected to the rail network in the case of the coastal cities –except Velez-
Malaga which was connected to Malaga-, and will recover the lost connection in the eastern
link in the case of Baza. Naturally the coastal capitals of Almeria and Malaga would reduce the
rail travel time between them.
With respect the stations’ location, as Ureña et al. (2012, p. 137) recognizes, “central locations
in small cities help their competitiveness”, and the intermodal connection with the public
transport system will also be very relevant. In the study area the stations of the capital
cities are adequately central, and they are well connected to the urban and metropolitan
public transport systems. The current arrangements of the HSR lines are also linked to the
developments in the stations of the area, with actions of enlargement, renovation and urban
integration in the stations of Algeciras, Almeria, Granada and Jaen (Ministerio de Fomento,
2015). These physical transformations will generate changes in the mobility patterns and land
uses and will have impact on economic and social structures and dynamics, which will produce
other physical transformations caused by the new patterns and increased mobility, as has been
studied in other cases (Bellet at al., 2012). As can be expected, these improvements in the
stations will also encourage the passenger increase in future rail services.

4.2 Increase of freight traffic and the logistic potential

The end of the proposed and projected actions to complete all the rail lines of the Mediterranean
Corridor, which should be in service by 2030, will give a continuous and competitive way of a
more sustainable transport. In addition there is a great coincidence of the lines of this corridor
with the location of all the logistic areas of the Logistic Andalusian Network and their expected
surfaces, which also should be completed and in service by the same horizon. All of these
will possibly provide a complete integration of the regional rail and logistic network with the
national and European transport networks. The rail freight, which is competitive for distances
longer 500 Km, will reduce the peripheral character of this area and will connect it with central
Europe.

These existing and future logistic areas will improve the port-rail and road-rail inter-modality
for an easy change of transport mode and will increase the integration of different transport
modes.
Naturally these improvements in the rail and logistic transport system will produce relevant
increase of freight transport demands, mainly in the relationships with origin/destination of
this southern area. According to the strategic plan for the freight rail transport impulse it is

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