Accessibility of rail trails in Huelva, Andalusia (Spain)

Abstract

The rail trails (converted disused railways) are infrastructures which can be reused mainly as non-motorised itineraries for hiking and cycle touring. Andalusia (Spain) has a network of 1442 km of disused railways, out of which 606 km are found in Huelva province (42.1%) as heritage from its former mining activity. The aim of this article is to devise a method which determines the real accessibility to rail trails and the volume of resident population who can reach them in a time period of 5, 10 and 15 minutes by road in a private vehicle. This process involves the determination of real accesses with accuracy and the differentiated calculation of the average speed on the different types of routes. The method is used for the three rail trails which currently exist in Huelva (98.6 km), having as a result a Map at a scale of 1:325,000.