Does Physio-environmental Determinism Influence the Infrastructural Development of Railway Stations?

Abstract

The main aim of the article is to understand the role of physiographical aspects and attributes in the infrastructural development of railway stations. Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System techniques have been used for delineating physiographic factors and data of social interfaces like passengers’ mobility collected from the railway stations. A robust Synthetic Indicator has been used to classify railway stations. The ordinal regression model has run between physio-environmental attributes and Robust Synthetic Indicator. Due to its unique valley and ridge topography and newly developed railway infrastructure, Phenomenological evidence is collected from Tripura, North-eastern state of India. Very few studies have been done addressing the development of railway stations with physio-environmental viability. The study reveals that the physical environment is a significant determining factor, but passenger mobility has a more decisive influence on the infrastructural development of railway stations in Tripura. Infrastructure-driven materialistic possibilism has been proposed as a philosophical model of the infrastructural development of railway stations.