Accessibility to freight transport networks in Belgium: a geographical approach

This paper focuses on the role of transportation infrastructure in freight accessibility from a sustainable and multi-modal perspective. Several accessibility measures are applied separately yet simultaneously to water, rail and road transportation systems. It appears that the transportation system is structuring the Belgian space geographically and topographically (inertia of space due to transportation infrastructure), but that economic activities are less associated with transporta-tion systems than with the population. This means that either economic activities are footloose, or that there is a major discrepancy between transportation infrastructure and economic locations. Land-use planners should be aware of this when making decisions about the mobility of the future. Copyright (c) 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.