Population and Accessibility: An Analysis of Turkish Railroads

FROM the bright traceries of Mark Jefferson's "Civilizing Rails" to the patterns of road diffusion described by Taaffe, Morrill, and Gould, there has been continuing interest in the role that transportation plays in the development of nations.' If the efficiency of transportation networks currently being created or expanded throughout the developing world is to be maximized in terms of limited capital and future needs, knowledge of how existing networks have grown is essential. The purpose of this study is to describe a new method for simulating transportation networks in terms of population distributions and major topographic barriers. An example of such a simulation is presented for railroads in Turkey. Ordered comparisons between the real and simulated Turkish networks offer further insight into general transportation theory as well as relating specifically to problems of accessibility in Turkey.