The supply of transports in the european atlantic arc: a strength of infrastructures transeuropeas for the development of the regional economies

Transport and communication infrastructures constitute one of the mainstays of regional development. The practice of this service attributed to transport and communication networks results in the genesis of a free flux of goods, capital, work and information throughout those regions which are enjoying the best territorial structuring. This way, investment in connectivity tends to encourage the creation of territorial access patterns which give rise, in their turn, to comparative advantages with regard to tertiary regional economies. This investment effort operates within the regional economies as a sort of drive motor. Firstly, it triggers the arrival of foreign capital, considered in terms of Direct Foreign Inversion (DFI). Secondly, the modernization of the transport network tends to have an effect on the industrial re-localization processes as well as on the steadily increasing diversification of the regional productive system. And thirdly, fixed social capital investment in transport tends to boost the action of two factors which are of the utmost importance. On the one hand, we can appreciate the increase of equal opportunity as well as of public property (general interest). On the other, we can see the territorial expansion of inter-territorial solidarity. This all would have a direct effect on regional economies, which would ultimately meet a steadily increase in social an economical cohesion rates. Keywords: Crowding-in, crowding-out, trade-off, fixed social capital, territorial connectivity, territorial accessibility, hinterland, public capital stock, inter-modality, modal chain, multimodality, operativity, Trans-European Transport Network (TEN), spillover effects, potential mobility demand.