Introduction
One of the fundamental principles of regional economics is the transport infrastructure, which plays a significant role in regional development. This implies that a region will be more productive, competitive and more successful than many isolated and remote regions with better access to the markets and input materials. However, it is empirically difficult to verify the impact of transport infrastructure on the regional development. It has been shown in many studies of the economists that the transport infrastructure endowment or interregional networks ‘location is positively correlated with the economic indicator like per capita GDP which leads to economic progress. Among the various transport systems, the rail and road networks are two important transport systems for the regional development as they have the greater accessibility to the people of the remote sections of the country. This correlation leads to agglomeration process in the European countries and like all other European countries, the transport infrastructure leads to regional development of U.K. However, the impact of transport infrastructure is uncertain for most of the regions of U.K. In U.K., where some of the regions are beneficial from the efficient transport networks, other regions also not be benefitted from this transport system due to lack of quick accessibility of transport network. Hence, there exist some differences in the regional development in U.K. through rail and road network. This situation has been tested in this research paper (Ec.europa.eu, 2015).
Aims and Objectives:-
Aims:-
The main aim of this study is :-
- To identify the process by which the rail and road network explain the differences in the development of regions in U.K.
Objectives:-
The objectives of this study are:-
- To study and analyze the data of U.K. transport system over the past decade.
- To study and analyze the data of regional development of U.K. over the last decade.
- To compare among north, south, east and west regional development of U.K.
- To analyze the effect of transport network in the various regions of U.K.
Research questions:-
- How can the rail and road network explain the differences in the development of regions in the U.K.?
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Hypothesis:-
Null hypothesis:-
H0: Rail and road network of U.K. explain differences in the regional development of U.K.
Alternative Hypothesis:-
H1: Rail and road network of U.K. do not explain any differences in the regional development of U.K.
Literature Review:-
The rail and road network has a significant effect on U.K.’s regional development. However, the fact is that in this case the U.K. economy is not working to its full potential. There is a lack of strategy guide to develop the infrastructural project in this regard, especially in case of rail and road infrastructure. Hence, despite of expansion of rail and road transport network in all over the country, the Northern region of the country is not so much benefitted from this, due to the lack of better accessibility of transport whereas the Southern region has benefitted greatly from this transport network system. Even the Southeast and South-West region of U.K. have faced a greater progress than the Northern region of the country (Ganser and Piro, 2012).
For the regional development, the quality of the transport infrastructure should be developed in terms of travel speeds, connectivity etc. These provide the competitive advantage of different regions of U.K. in terms of accessibility. The changes in location qualities and spatial development patterns may occur due to various levels of investments in the transport infrastructure in various regions of U.K (Wu, 2012).
With a view to gather knowledge that is more accurate in this regard, the U.K. government should initiate some major researches. In this direction, a useful step towards the ongoing studies on this topic should be taken. In response to the SACTRA Report on “Transport and the Economy”, as a fundamental part of its appraisal, U.K. government gave a commitment to introduce a report on economic impact (REVIEW OF URBAN & REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES BEST PAPER AWARD 2014, 2015).
Research Methodology:-
In this case, to analyze the effect of transport network in the regional development of U.K., the statistical data of rail and road transport network of U.K. and the data of regional progress of data have been collected from the secondary sources, have represented as a tabular and chart form. To develop the relationship between the theoretical model and numerical value, a quantitative research has been made in this case. The deductive method will also be followed by the theory to justify the theory with the numerical data. As this research study has the clear objective, it deals with the positivism research philosophy (Worldbank.org, 2015).
References
Ec.europa.eu, (2015). Transport statistics at regional level - Statistics Explained. [online] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Transport_statistics_at_regional_level [Accessed 17 Jul. 2015].
Ganser, R. and Piro, R. (2012). Parallel patterns of shrinking cities and urban growth. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate.
REVIEW OF URBAN & REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES BEST PAPER AWARD 2014. (2015). Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, 27(1), pp.1-1.
Worldbank.org, (2015). Roads & Highways: Road Safety. [online] Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/transport/roads/safety.htm [Accessed 17 Jul. 2015].
Wu, J. (2012). Natural resources and sustainable development. Durnten-Zurich, Switzerland: TransTech Publications.
