The Accessibility Buffer – A Basic GIS Tool in Determining the Competitive Potential Index

The study aims at highlighting accessibility both as a crucial component in establishing the Competitive Potential Index (CPI) and as a good indicator for the capitalization of the regional potential of Romania. The present research contributes to the discussion about the competitive potential of economic growth at territorial level and attempts to identify policy guidelines of regional relevance for a national economy. We performed a spatial analysis of the most important Romanian growth centers and compared it to other centers of the same rank in the nearby European space. Spatial analysis can play a decisive role in defining the areas with economic potential. We have demonstrated that national or metropolitan growth poles are directly influenced by the degree of accessibility and therefore it is obvious that there is a direct relationship between the capitalization of economic potential and the density of transport infrastructure. The defining of various accessibility areas was done by taking into account the presence of modern transportation routes and the influence of topography. GIS applications proved to be extremely useful in the delimitation of accessibility areas and, in addition, they provided very accurate results. The areas lying at a distance in time of less than or equal to one hour from the core of the growth pole, irrespective of the land transportation means, were included in the category of highly accessible areas. At the same time, one can note that on the national scale the values of CPI are different. This fact can be explained by an uneven capitalization of the economic potential, which can be put to the account of an unequal development of the transport infrastructure in Romania. In order to get a clear picture of the relationship between CPI and accessibility in the case of Bucharest, which is the main growth pole of Romania, we made comparisons with two metropolis of the same development rank lying nearby (Budapest and Sofia). The employed methodology can also be used for identifying the areas that can be turned to economic account provided that the local and regional transport infrastructures are developed or modernized.