ABSTRACT
This chapter returns to the question of how peripherality affects accessibility and the consequences of this for economic development. It concentrates on the various dimensions of choice inherent in perceptions of accessibility, of mode, route and carrier, and argues the need for a much more disaggregated approach to accessibility measurement for policy purposes. In two previous papers the question of accessibility in peripheral regions has been addressed; first, the concepts of accessibility and the possibility of their measurement (Vickerman 1995a) and, secondly, the relationship of accessibility measures to the potential for regional development (Vickerman et al. 1995). In this chapter we seek to go rather further in considering the problems of accessibility in peripheral regions, arguing that conventional measures fail to identify adequately the real constraints on peripheral regions. This is an important consideration in any discussion of the promotion of cohesion, but also affects attempts to assess the impact on competitiveness of new infrastructure or other improvements to the transport system.
