High Speed Railway Hubs in European Medium-Sized Cities: The Case of the ENTER.HUB Network

This contribution relates to the ENTER.HUB project implemented between 2012 and 2015 in the framework of the European URBACT II programme. ENTER.HUB involved twelve medium-sized cities fitting into Trans-European Transport Networks (TENT-T) corridors, realizing or forecasting a High Speed Railway (HSR) Hub and planning multimodal interfaces of regional relevance. The ENTER.HUB project questioned the role of HSR Hubs in integrated urban development and in economic, social and cultural regeneration. The cities participating to ENTER.HUB network had in common to be in the process of redefining their territorial mobility systems, expecting that a Hub infrastructure would reinforce their links to other national and European cities, narrow their citizens and enterprises to diverse regional and interregional activities, and strength their connectivity from local to European level. The major objective of this project was to help these medium-sized cities to become more competitive and improve their mobility systems in connection with the HSR Hub to come. The twelve cities composing the ENTER HUB network are: Reggio Emilia (Italy), Lead Partner; IMPEFE Ciudad Real (Spain); Creil Agglomeration (France); Gdynia (Poland); Girona (Spain); Łódź (Poland); Lugano (Switzerland); Örebro Region (Sweden); Porto (Portugal); Preston (UK); Rostock (Germany); Ulm (Germany).