Participatory Approach to Assessing Social and Spatial Impacts of High-Speed Rail at the Urban and Regional Levels: Case of San Sebastian, Spain

The study of urban and regional impacts of high-speed rail (HSR) has drawn much attention in the research literature over the last few years. Previous studies have mostly used traditional tools (cost-benefit analysis, hedonic models, discrete choice modeling, and so on) to conduct ex ante analyses of potential HSR impacts. However, little attention has been paid to know the views of representatives from different economic sectors and their potential contribution to the participatory phase of the planning process. To address this limitation, this paper developed an ex ante participatory approach for analyzing HSR's urban and regional impacts, which fed into and complement other traditional assessment tools. This approach was applied to the case study of San Sebastian and its province in Spain, which should be linked to the Spanish HSR network by 2025. The research found that different economic sectors agree on some economic impacts triggered by HSR but disagree on many social and regional equity impacts. The paper discussed the potential of this approach for policymaking, highlighting its value in complementing traditional impact assessment methodologies.