A transport network for a City network in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region: linking the performance of the public transport service with the perspectives of a monocentric or a polycentric urban system

The objective of this contribution is to establish a method linking the performance of the regional rail transport network and two principles of territorial organisation around a central pole (monocentric option) or in a city network (polycentric option), applied to the Région Nord-Pas-de-Calais in France. The first step here is to define a set of urban centres, on which the spatial organisation principles are applied. The analysis of the quality of transport service is established from an indicator expressing the possibility to accomplish daily trips between two cities with a ‘fast train at the right moment’ from home and back. The method allows us to analyse the answer of the transport system to expressed or potential demand, but it is also used to analyse the spatial organisation of the system and to link it to spatial planning objectives. From this point of view, the organisation of the Région Nord-Pas-de-Calais appears more to exhibit a monocentric pattern around Lille than to lend significant support to the polycentric idea. The promotion of such a polycentric organisation will then only be possible through a voluntarist regional planning policy.