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A methodological approach to analyze the territorial appropriation of high-speed rail from interactions
between actions and representations of local actors

evolves and takes specific forms according to the categories of actors. From the political
and institutional actors’ sides, the negotiations on the choice of rail services, the spatial
planning intended to encourage the integration of stations and the strategies to promote and
to enhance high-speed rail, shed light on the territorial appropriation of the new transport
infrastructure. From the users’ and economic actors’ sides, the appropriation of the new
transport supply appears at this stage through the way they adapt their travel practices to the
changes introduced by high speed rail. The joint analysis of these different appropriative logics
thus makes it possible to assess the coherence of the implemented development strategies by
relating them to the appropriation forms that have accompanied the preparation of the HSR
project. The example of small-sized French and Spanish cities (Facchinetti-Mannone, et al.,
2013) has thus clearly emphasized that the strategies developed to facilitate the expansion
of new metropolitan functions near the peripheral HSR stations corresponded neither to the
expectations of companies which, in their great majority, have not regarded HSR as a factor
of location, nor to the strengthening of the polarization of large cities revealed by railway
customers’ travel practices.

- Most high-speed lines in operation today offer the necessary perspective to analyze the "post-
consumption appropriation” stage. The follow up of valorisation strategies and complementary
surveys to those already carried out will help to improve the understanding of the forms of
appropriation that accompany the trivialization of the transport service. If the reorientations
of development strategies highlight the evolution of the appropriation logics, the follow-up
of these strategies will be more specifically put into perspective with the way in which the
renewal of rail accessibility and the development projects created by HSR have been integrated
into the territorial projects. The latter will be approached through an analysis of the “Schéma
de Cohérence Territoriale” (SCOT) . The general and transversal nature of these planning
4
documents, intended to reinforce the link between spatial planning and travel management
policy makes it possible to objectively apprehend the role devoted to high-speed rail in the
territory project, the degree of the integration of stations into territorial development strategies
as well as their degree of appropriation by institutional actors.
For instance, the comparison between the territorial coherence plans of “Pays Barrois”(served
by the Meuse TGV station) (Pays Barrois, 2014), Great Besançon (served by the Besançon
Franche-Comté TGV station) ( Syndicat Mixte du Schéma de Cohérence Territoriale, 2014),
and Great Rovaltain (served by the Valence TGV station) (Syndicat Mixte du SCOT du Grand
Rovaltain-Ardèche-Drôme, 2014), all served by new HSR stations built on the outskirts of cities,
underlines the very different roles played by high speed rail in the territorial project. Despite a
similar spatial distribution of train stations, the three territorial planning documents point out
distinct modes of appropriation of high-speed rail by local political actors. Thus, high-speed rail
occupies a marginal place in the territorial project of the Pays Barrois. This low appropriation
contrasts with the strong willingness to transform the new transport supply into a vector of
European openness and economic development of Greater Besançon, or into a ferment of
coherence and territorial identity in the case of Rovaltain.

The modalities of appropriation identified through these planning documents will have to be
compared with those of the other categories of actors and more specifically with the way in
which railway users and economic players adapt the new transportation supply to their daily
lives and functioning. Early business surveys revealed that high speed rail, whatever its use and
degree of influence in firms’ location decisions, has introduced a number of changes in their
functioning. Some of them have taken advantage of the land available in the vicinity of the
stations to gather activities formerly scattered over several national or regional sites in a single
place. Others have taken the opportunity offered by the improvement of accessibility to acquire
new markets, expand their recruitment area or develop new economic partnerships. Beyond

4 Territorial Coherence Plan established on the metropolitan area scale.

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 355