This Master Thesis gives an insight of railroad infrastructure at a regional level of European importance through a case-study within the Rhine-Neckar region in Germany. Administrative competences are hard to overcome from the planning point of view, consequently regions rely on informal planning tools to achieve a broader transnational and integrated transport strategy in Europe. Beside that metropolitan regions have in a scientific sense four different functions. One of them is the gateway function in a polycentric European development. Therefore this thesis analyze the new high-speed railway track between Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim. Furthermore the thesis draws an outlook of the further development of the new high-speed railway and their expected problems out of a regional planning point of view. The conclusion give an insight, if all four scientific metropolitan functions can be found within the region and what their approach of a cooperative federalism is about. All four metropolitan functions can be found within the region in terms of the new high-speed railway. The innovation function is given through the INTERREG IVB-NWE project CODE24, which was elected as a strategic initiative and was of European importance. The decision-making and control function is given through the established European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation, as it gives the whole initiative an European legal form. The symbol function can be found particularly in a footnote of the German Federal Train Track Expansion Act back in 2004, as the region achieved a legal boundary at the federal level. The last function, the gateway function, is given as the corridor between those two agglomerations has the highest traffic volume in Germany.

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