High-Speed Railways and the location choices of firms: the role of accessibility. Several studies claim that high-speed railways can influence the location choices of firms. This paper discusses the influence of accessibility in general and of accessibility by high-speed train in particular on the location choices of firms. General economic-geographic studies show that in general accessibility can be an important factor for location choices. This importance varies strongly between different aspects of accessibility (different transport modes and different transport motives) and between different firms and firm establishments. From orientating interviews among corporate decision makers the importance of different accessibility factors appears to depend, within others, from how often face-to-face contacts with customers and business partners occur, in which branches of industry most of the customers are active and what part of the employees is provided with a business car. The orientating interviews further show that the level-of-service of stations, expressed as the number and types of connections, can be of importance for firms. For their location choices firms value the accessibility by public transport higher than might be expected form the actual travel behaviour of employees and visitors. At this moment high-speed trains do not or hardly play a role in the location choices of firms in the Netherlands, mainly because of the short distances within the country and the small number of connections. (Author/publisher)
Abstract