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High-speed rail in developing countries and potential inequalities of use: the case of Morocco
In developing countries, this issue has been analysed by Shi and Zhou (2015) in China. They
show that investments in high‐speed lines have not significantly changed transport equity.
While the accessibility of cities has been improved by high‐speed services, the price of a ticket
is unaffordable for a large part of the population.
In the literature, we can find three types of inequalities linked to high‐speed rail:
• spatial inequalities linked to the fact that the infrastructure is not uniformly distributed
in spatial terms;
• spatial inequalities related to differences in service between the territories served;
• economic inequalities linked to pricing.
3.2 Inequalities in access related to infrastructure and service
As Kim pointed out in 2009 (Kim, 2009, p. 137), “infrastructure investments that increase
the mobility of goods, labour, and capital may have significant impacts on spatial inequality
because of the self‐forcing nature of increasing returns”. In both developed and developing
countries, highspeed rail networks do not serve all cities and are generally concentrated on
routes between the largest urban centres. Indeed, while in France many intermediate and even
small towns are served by TGV (the French high‐speed train), most often on a conventional line,
in other countries such as Japan, where high‐speed trains do not operate on the conventional
network, fewer cities are served (see Campos and de Rus, 2009, for a presentation of the
different types of networks). In China, the network serves the largest cities in the country,
mainly on the east coast, except for the line linking Xuzhou to Lanzhou in the centre of the
country . In Turkey, Ankara, Istanbul and Konya are among the seven largest cities in the country
9 . The other smaller cities served by high‐speed rail are located on the Ankara–Istanbul line.
Thus, the inequalities of access linked to the existence of a line are close to those existing in
some developed countries.
Moreover, the level of the service (frequency, during the week, at weekends) is variable between
cities. For example, the frequency is often correlated to the size of the urban areas in question.
In 2010 in France, there were on average 3.3 direct round trips to Paris for cities with 20,000
to 100,000 inhabitants and 10 for cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants (Delaplace, 2012).
There are inequalities in the service provided. These inequalities depend on the size of the
cities served. In China, given the large size of most cities, service inequalities are likely to be
lower. The magnitude of improvements resulting from new high‐speed services also depends
on the existence and quality of conventional rail services in a given city (Delaplace, 2017,
Garmendia et al., 2008). If the quality of the previous classic rail service was very low, the
improvements linked to HSTs will appear to be more significant. In these circumstances, the
increase in accessibility will represent only a marginal improvement. In developing countries,
rail service is generally of lower quality or nonexistent. The inequalities of accessibility between
territories served by high‐speed rail and those that are not are thus much more significant.
This differentiated spatial impact of HSR may be linked to economic inequalities.
3.3 Access inequalities related to pricing and differentiated income
High‐speed rail services can generate economic exclusion because of ticket prices. Indeed,
these tickets are often more expensive than conventional train tickets. High‐speed rail services
are thus not merit goods accessible to all.
9 There is another line towards the north‐western part of China linking Lanzhou and Urumqi, but its operating speed is below 250
km/h, the minimum for a rail line to be considered a high‐speed line.
International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 43
