Effect of Infrastructure Investment and Freight Accessibility on Gross Domestic Product: A Data-Driven Geographical Approach

Freight transportation can be defined as the movement of goods and services to customers to obtain a monetary reward. Poor quality transport infrastructure implies higher travelling times and costs. This indirectly affects the productivity of a region since transportation costs are directly related to sales prices. Therefore, infrastructure investments become important for improving the competitiveness of a region. The problem with these investments is that they take time and require a large amount of money. Consequently, it is extremely important to prioritise this type of investment. This paper will first explain whether transportation investment or a sustainable transportation method affect the exported freight accessibility and if it also affects regional productivity using a linear regression model with the aid of a data-driven geographical information system. It uses spatial separation, gravity, and cumulative opportunity measures to calculate accessibility. Finally, the paper denotes which regions are highly affected by improvements in road, river, and railway networks using Colombia as a case study. The comparison considers travelling time and costs savings under each scenario. The results indicate that the gravity measure was the most appropriate accessibility measure for analysing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The scenario analyses suggest that zones farthest from the seaports are more sensitive to accessibility changes; consequently, they will receive higher improvements in their regional GDP with a national-level implementation of transport infrastructure investments. Thus, project prioritisation should be performed in regions where the investments lead to a decreased travel cost between regions and ports.