This work investigates historical railways of Romania from the middle of the XIXth century up to the present with the purpose of assessing changes in spatial accessibility to rail services and its impact on the demographic trajectories of rural areas. Spatial accessibility to train stations is computed using GIS tools for each decade from 1860 up to the present, whilst the impact of spatial accessibility on demographic trajectories is assessed for each intercensal-period from 1912 to 2022. The latter is done only for some of the railway lines inaugurated during the last century by employing “before and after” comparisons. The statistical association between changes in accessibility to train stations and demographic trajectories is afterwards explored using regressions analysis (between changes in spatial accessibility indices to train stations and changes in local population). The results suggest a generally strong relationship between rail accessibility and demographic trajectories of localities during the last century, but also a relationship that changes significantly throughout history, especially when one compares the inter-war period, the communist period and the post-communist period.

Mihail Eva
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași

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ID Abstract: 558