Page 44 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Delaplace, Marie.

There are also inequalities between the rural world and the urban world because, within a
given country, wages in urban areas are higher than those that prevail in a rural environment.
As underlined by Perroux (1955, p. 309) “growth doesn’t appear everywhere at the same time;
rather, it appears in different areas or growth clusters with variable intensity”. For example,
in China in 2006, the incomes of the urban population were on average 3.55 times higher than
those of rural populations (Boquet, 2009) and this gap has grown as the country has developed
(1.7 times in 1984, 2.3 in 1992, 2.8 in 2000, 3.2 in 2004). Similarly, in Morocco, while 19% of the
Moroccan population lives below the national poverty line, 70% of these individuals live in rural
areas (Boutayeb, 2006). So what is the impact of high‐speed rail in the developing world, given
the levels of economic, social and spatial inequalities that characterize it?

3. High‐speed rail and the issue of inequalities in developing countries

Mobility has become necessary in developed countries. Since 1982 in France, the national
law on domestic transport (known as LOTI, or Loi d’orientation des transports intérieurs) has
institutionalized a right to transport, and mobility has become a right (Orfeuil, 2011, Urry,
2000, quoted by Cass et al., 2005). Indeed, this “rising value of contemporary societies is at the
same time a factor in the reinforcement of social inequalities” (Bacqué and Fol, 2007; see also
Cass, 2005 for the case of Great Britain), since without this right an individual cannot access a
whole series of activities and, increasingly, employment (Orfeuil, 2004, Bacqué and Fol, 2007).
The mobile processes and infrastructures of travel and transport can generate and reinforce
social exclusion (Cass et al., 2005). While the issue of inequalities associated with transport and
mobility is not new, it has to date mainly been addressed from the point of view of daily urban
mobility. However, high‐speed rail is also likely to reinforce inequalities. This is the case in
developed countries, but more particularly in developing countries, in part because high‐speed
rail does not serve all areas within these countries, but also because it can lead to economic
exclusion and exclusion in terms of access and use.
3.1 High‐speed rail and inequalities: an analytical framework

People do not always have the opportunity, income and/or skills to be mobile. The literature
defines social exclusion as the inability of individuals to access activities in which they need to
participate (Kenyon et al., 2002, Preston and Rajé, 2007 and Church et al., 2000, for an analysis
of social exclusion linked to transport, and Banister, 1994, on equity issues in transport). An
improvement in the transport offer associated with a high‐speed line can lead to inequalities
and be spatially inequitable in the sense that not everyone has access to it.
The issue of inequalities associated with high‐speed rail has recently been studied in developed
countries. In the case of Spain, Monzon et al. (2013) show that extensions of high‐speed rail
in periurban areas have led to an increase in spatial imbalances and contribute to a more
polarized spatial development. Bouf and Desmaris (2015) consider that high‐speed rail lines
are spatially unfair in France, first because they promote growth in an unfair way, secondly
because the pricing system is unfair (ticket prices per kilometre vary according to the line and
are not proportional to the distance travelled), and lastly because the way in which they are
funded (amounts, types of contributors) vary significantly from one line to another. Kim and
Sultana (2015) point out that in South Korea spatial equity was diminished when the network
was extended in 2010/2011, as accessibility improvement was concentrated in cities located on
the first high‐speed corridor near the capital. Pagliara et al. (2016) show that in Italy people are
very sensitive to the cost of accessing high‐speed rail and the cost of high‐speed train tickets.
These costs have a strong impact on spatial equity.

42 360.revista de alta velocidad