Fabian Wenner

The location decision of knowledge-intensive firms (KIF) depends on many factors. In a globally connected knowledge economy, long-distance accessibility is one such factor, which is provided by long-distance railway, inter alia. Areas in proximity to long-distance rail stations are therefore candidates for the settlement of KIF. At the same time, the concept of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) posits the development of areas around public transit hubs for residential and commercial use with high densities and diversity of uses, which are additional factors for the settlement of KIF as they increase the location attractiveness of workplaces for employees. In Germany, TOD has not yet been embraced for guidance in actual planning procedures, at least not in an outspoken sense. However, we hypothesize that effects are likely to be detected: rail station areas that exhibit more pronounced TOD characteristics will be associated with higher counts of KIF. To test the hypothesis, we develop and apply a quantitative operationalization of TOD and contrast it with the settlement of KIF at 178 long-distance rail stations in Germany. The results show that the relationships between the variables are as hypothesized. Higher degrees of TOD implementation are associated with higher counts of KIF. Therefore, as our methodological innovation, we suggest adding depth of knowledge, here capturing the absolute number of KIF, as a TOD outcome dimension variable besides the conventional TOD dimensions. These results have policy relevance for (German) planning procedures as they show that more active use of TOD implementation practices is likely to entail positive feedback loops for cities by attracting the knowledge economy.

A profound appraisal framework has been developed and refined in transport economics and planning literature for decades, mainly characterised by welfare economic theory, cost–benefit analysis, and transport demand modelling. In summary, the appraisal methodology and its applications have concentrated on single infrastructure measures, marginal impacts identified through ceteris paribus comparisons, forecasts based on trends from the past, and monetary assessments of all quantifiable impacts. However, this framework has been continuously contested in transport planning literature, for instance, for its focus on travel demand and short-term travel time savings. Therefore, we suggest a novel approach for planning and assessing transport schemes in city regions, combining accessibility analyses, quantitative target indicators, and cost-effectiveness analysis. We develop and test this approach by assessing a proposed underground rail project in the Munich city region, the U5 southeast extension. In this case, we define an accessibility target level and estimate the potential for push measures along with the U5 project. We find modest impacts on quantitative targets in the Munich city region: Even when the U5 southeast extension is bundled with push measures in selected transport cells, the contribution to passenger transport-related carbon dioxide emission targets and primary energy consumption targets is low. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that the proposed assessment framework can support strategic transport planning in city regions. We argue for a change in perspective towards supply-side-oriented urban transport planning. Our proposed methodology is a first step in a different direction towards a sustainable mobility planning paradigm.

By accelerating the overcoming of space on certain relations, transport systems alter the accessibility of places and distort geographical time–space. Particularly in the case of discontinuous and tiered transport systems such as (high-speed) rail networks, effects on time–space can be highly selective and difficult to visualise. This paper compares different methods of operationalisation and visualisation of the effects of new transport systems (infrastructures and services) on time–space, and examines their strengths and weaknesses, using the example of the evolution of the German rail network between 1990 and 2020. The methods are well-known ones such as isochrones, choropleths using measures from network theory, anamorphosis (cartograms) and less-known ones as spring maps and the shrivelling model. For the examination of the readability of the methods, we present relevant properties for time–space maps. The results suggest that conventional methods are simpler to interpret, but fail to convey certain properties, while less frequently used methods may be better at incorporating the properties at the cost of being more difficult to read.

This paper analyzes how positional and relational data in 186 regions of Germany influence the location choices of knowledge-based firms. Where firms locate depends on specific local and interconnected resources, which are unevenly distributed in space. This paper presents an innovative way to study such firm location decisions through network analysis that relates exponential random graph modeling (ERGM) to the interlocking network model (INM). By combining attribute and relational data into a comprehensive dataset, we capture both the spatial point characteristics and the relationships between locations. Our approach departs from the general description of individual location decisions in cities and puts extensive networks of knowledge-intensive firms at the center of inquiry. This method can therefore be used to investigate the individual importance of accessibility and supra-local connectivity in firm networks. We use attributional data for transport (rail, air), universities, and population, each on a functional regional level; we use relational data for travel time (rail, road, air) and frequency of relations (rail, air) between two regions. The 186 functional regions are assigned to a three-level grade of urbanization, while knowledge-intensive economic activities are grouped into four knowledge bases. This research is vital to understand further the network structure under which firms choose locations. The results indicate that spatial features, such as the population of or universities in a region, seem to be favorable but also reveal distinct differences, i.e., the proximity to transport infrastructure and different valuations for accessibility for each knowledge base.

As a protective measure during the Covid-19 pandemic, in Spring 2020, a high number of employees began relocating their workplace to their homes, many for the first time. Recent surveys suggest that the share of those working from home (WFH) will remain higher than before the pandemic in the long term too—with correspondingly fewer commuting journeys. Workplaces are still often concentrated in inner cities, into which workers commute from more outlying areas. However, classical geographical economic theory suggests that a reduced need for commuting might lead to a reorientation of residential preferences amongst employees towards even fewer urban areas, as households trade off the disamenity of commuting against lower housing costs and more living space. This article investigates how such consequences could unfold in space. The Munich Metropolitan Region is characterised by a high share of knowledge-based jobs suitable for WFH and thus serves as our case study. We collect data at the municipality level for relevant aspects of residential location choices and develop an index for the potential of additional residential demand through increased WFH for each municipality in the Munich Metropolitan Region. Crucially, a municipality’s potential depends on the number of commuting days per week. Keeping the weekly commuting time budget constant, an increase in WFH, or a reduction in commuting days allows a longer commuting time per trip. We visualise our results and sensitivities with maps. We observe a gradual yet discontinuous decay of potentials from the region’s core to the fringes with an increase in WFH days.

New High-Speed Rail stations are often expected to act as catalysts for regional and local urban and economic development. Accessibility improvements are assumed to increase locational attractiveness for households and companies, motivating municipal decision-makers to allocate land for urban development projects, particularly in the immediate vicinity of new stations. However, most empirical studies call such automatic effects into question, pointing to the importance of additional local factors, such as station location within the urban context. We construct a dataset of 232 stations in 11 countries in Europe to analyse evolving station placement strategies as well as land use changes in the surroundings of High-Speed Rail stations before and after construction. We find that stations close to the existing urban fabric and well connected by complementary regional and local public transport are on average associated with more land use change, while peripheral stations outside of metropolitan regions hardly attract any development.

Transport accessibility is an important location factor for households and firms. In the last few decades, technological and social developments have contributed to a reinvigorated role of passenger transport. However, rail accessibility is unevenly distributed in space. The introduction of high-speed rail has furthermore promoted a polarisation of accessibility between metropolises and peripheral areas in some European countries. In this article we analyse the development of rail accessibility at the regional level in Germany between 1990 and 2020 for 266 functional city-regions. Our results show two different facets: The number of regions that are directly connected to one another has decreased, but at the same time the spatial disparities of accessibility have decreased, albeit to a small extent. This development was strongest in East Germany after German reunification and thus largely a consequence of the renovation of the conventional rail infrastructure, not high-speed rail. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that the introduction of high-speed traffic in Germany did not lead to an increase in accessibility disparities. Instead, the accessibility effects of high-speed rail in Germany seem to break the traditional dichotomy between core and periphery.

New transport infrastructure alters the spatial distribution of accessibility, which can influence a region’s development potential. The implementation of High-Speed Rail (HSR) during the last decades has often considerably improved rail accessibility of connected regions, but is also often found to increase relative discrepancies between regions. We analyse the effects of currently planned rail projects on regional accessibility in Germany, with a spatial and network structure differing from other countries, for the year 2030. We use a population potential and a degree centrality measure and find slight tendency towards greater balancing of accessibility across regions and greater poly-centralisation within the rail network, showing the importance of network integration and improvements beyond the HSR network. Two macro-regions of Germany profit most from the planned rail lines: the economically dynamic South and the catching-up East. We interpret this as the outcome of two simultaneous planning goals which include removing “bottlenecks” and supporting weaker regions. We propose that the official regional planning assessment currently used in the planning process of national rail infrastructure could be improved by applying a potential accessibility measure.