Christophe Mimeur is defending his PhD thesis "The traces of speed between space and network - Geohistorical approach to the growth of the French Railway Network" on December 9th 2016 in Dijon

Category: Dissertation Defence

The defense will take place at the "Salle du Conseil de l’UFR Droit, au rez-de-chaussée du Bâtiment Droit-Lettres de l’Université de Bourgogne" (4 boulevard Gabriel, 21000 DIJON). This work was directed by Thomas Thévenin.

 

Defense jury

Corinne BLANQUART, Research Director at the IFSTTAR,

Anne BRETAGNOLLE, Professor at the University Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne,

Valérie FACCHINETTI-MANNONE, Associate Professor at the University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté,

Jordi MARTI-HENNEBERG, Professor at the University of Lleida, Spain

Thomas THEVENIN, Professor at the University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

Abstract

The interaction between space and network are frequently questioned in the academic literature, by asking the economical and demographical impacts of a new infrastructure, often studied at the scale of a project. This work aims to investigate the components of the interaction in both large spatial and temporal scales. The hypothesis is that the temporal depth and the national scale could bring new explanations. This work is based on the collect, the exploitation and the analysis of the large spatio-temporal database FRANcE (French Railway Network). It identifies all sections of the network since the 19th century and the population census. This database also contains the traces of the speed, which are novel information for network, and allows the accessibility to become a decisive variable in the explanations.

Rather than acquisition new data with an intensive phase of collect, we aim to build a methodological chain to study the two senses of interaction between space and network. It requires the adaptation of data structuration and analysis. The approach of this thesis consists on the growing modelling of the phenomenon, from the comprehension to formalization of data to the analysis, which requires the use of other disciplines. This work uses the graph theory to investigate the two senses of the relationship. It permits to study the network effect in the long run by diversifying the data to identify spatial and temporal ranges. It permits to study the impact of a pre-existing structure in the morphogenesis of the network, by using a dynamic model of network evolution, between diffusion and hierarchical organization. This work aims to understand the link between space and network, where the methodological tools can be adapted to other networks, other times and actual questioning.