The potential impacts of high speed rail on regional economic development in Australia: towards a multi-regional input-output approach

Estimating the economic impacts of high speed rail (HSR) on regional development is a largely unresolved issue. This paper will provide an overview of the basic issues, the contributions of empirical literature, the modelling approaches used until now, a multiregional framework and how that might be applied in an Australian context. The proposed multiregional framework focuses on the inter-industry relationship and the assessment of changes on a transportation network, with the analytical methods employed being twofold: a multiregional input-output (IO) model and a transportation accessibility evaluation index. By using this analytical framework, the economic impacts from developing an Australian HSR system can be estimated and evaluated on hypothetical scenarios relating to any future HSR project.