Going Big in a Small Country: Fifty Years of Motorways in Portugal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59072/rper.vi70.633Keywords:
Motorways, Road Accessibility, Portugal, Geographic Information SystemsAbstract
Portugal’s motorway network experienced significant transformation in a relatively short period. Until the mid-1980s, the network counted less than 200 kilometers, reaching more than 3 000 kilometers in the end of this decade of the 21st century. As a result of this strong investment, the country now has one of the largest and densest motorway networks in the European Union. This paper describes the methodology developed for the construction of a longitudinal spatial database covering 50 years of road improvements in mainland Portugal using the Geographic Information Systems environment technology. Besides containing information for different road networks, the database also includes administrative, demographic, and socioeconomic information for Portugal’s mainland municipalities. Using the new database developed by the authors, the paper analyzes the evolution of the motorway network and the road-based accessibility to population and jobs over the period from 1971 to 2020. The new database is publicly available to other researchers and will, hopefully, be used in future studies on the socioeconomic impacts of road investments in Portugal, for example, to understand how improved road accessibility contributed to regional economic development or regional cohesion.
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