Urban node planning for high speed rail: the case of Surat in India

Abstract

At the mid of September 2017, foundation stone laid of a huge public transportation project which is the Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed rail project in India with an ambition of its 1st run by 2022. It is the right opportunity for the urban planners and policymakers to study, or predict the future. This study will look into the spatial dimensions of planning. There are significant changes happened around highspeed rail station areas in Japanese and European cities where established highspeed rail lines are a major mode of transportation with high ridership. Research on high-speed rail has usually been done largely from the financial or economic point of view. High-Speed Rail planning has many dimensions like financial, economic, spatial, urban, regional, technological, economic, environmental, urban design etc. Very few studies and planning initiative have addressed the urban spatial dimension of high-speed rail. This ‘Urban Node Planning for High-Speed Rail: The Case of Surat in India’ thesis will zoom into the urban node of high-speed rail TOD and its aspects of planning at a city scale in urban spatial dimension. The aim of the study is to analyse existing scenarios and propose HSR friendly land use product mix and transport accessibility around High-Speed Rail node for the city Surat in India. To achieve this existing empirical evidence of the relevant literature and case studies are used, primary surveys were done, relevant data was collected from different authorities of Surat, Space syntax method used to analyse the transport accessibility and weighted average method used to find out the ideal station location for Surat.