An Integrated Approach for the Territorial Impact Assessment of High-Speed Railways

The growing attention to the impacts that transports policies and infrastructure projects have on sustainability and territorial cohesion has been strengthened by the progressive inclusion of these goals among the main objectives of the European Union. In particular, as stated by the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion, the concept of territorial cohesion “builds bridges between economic effectiveness, social cohesion and ecological balance, putting sustainable development at the heart of policy design.” These goals have been fostering research and experimentation paths for the many companies of the Italian Railways Group (FS Group); in this framework, territorial cohesion and sustainability are the topics of a partnership between the FS Research Centre and the Italferr Sustainability Unit, with the aim of updating the methodological frameworks for the assessment of the territorial impacts of railways. The study is rooted in the institutional and scientific debate on territorial cohesion, interpreted as the “territorial dimension of sustainability” (Camagni, Rivista di Economia e statistica del Territorio 3:37–62, 2006a), and is anchored to the methodological references developed for the evaluation of economic, cultural, social, environmental, and governance impacts. To this end, the paper proposes a theoretical and methodological framework of indicators to assess the territorial impacts of high-speed railway projects, arising from a research pathway consisting of 4 phases: the illustration of the literature review on territorial cohesion; the focus on Territorial Impact Assessment methods and indicators; a comparison of the indicators with the Envision Protocol for infrastructures; the proposal of a multidimensional framework of indicators for the territorial impact assessment related to High-Speed Rail.