# Towards Sustainable Regional Planning: Potential of Commuter Rail in the Madrid Urban Region
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Characterization of the Municipalities with and without Commuter Stations
On the other hand, among the municipalities with commuter stations, medium-low and medium-high densities dominate (67%), while there are also very low densities in 28% of them. They, however, are concentrated in the northwest, where the commuter rail was \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline  & & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Madrid**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Municipalities**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Municipalities**} \\ \cline{3-8}  & **Year** &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Urban** \\ **Region** \\ \end{tabular} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Municipalities**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Municipalities**} \\ \cline{3-8}  & **Percent\({}^{\ddagger}\)** & **Percent\({}^{\ddagger}\)** & **Percent\({}^{\ddagger}\)** & **Percent\({}^{\ddagger}\)** & **Percent\({}^{\ddagger}\)** \\ \hline Population & 1991 & 5367.6 & 3010.5 & 56.1\% & 611.2 & 11.4\% & 1745.9 & 32.5\% \\ (thousands of people) & 2018 & 7301.6 & 3223.3 & 44.2\% & 1415.6 & 19.4\% & 2662.6 & 36.4\% \\  & 1991–2018 & +1934.0 & +212.8 & \(-\)11.9\% & +804.4 & +8.0\% & +916.7 & +4.0\% \\ \hline Working population & 1991 & 2139.0 & 1224.2 & 57.2\% & 228.8 & 10.2\% & 685.9 & 32.1\% \\ (thousands of people) & 2018 & 3481.5 & 2007.0 & 57.7\% & 487.9 & 14.0\% & 986.6 & 28.3\% \\  & 1991–2018 & +1342.5 & +782.8 & +0.3\% & +259.1 & +3.3\% & +300.7 & \(-\)4.2\% \\ \hline  & 1990 & 704.6 & 208.8 & 29.6\% & 250.8 & 35.6\% & 245.0 & 34.8\% \\ Artificial land surface (km\({}^{2}\)) & 2018 & 1478.6 & 327.2 & 22.1\% & 626.2 & 42.4\% & 525.3 & 35.5\% \\  & 1991–2018 & +774.0 & +118.4 & \(-\)7.5\% & +375.4 & +6.8\% & +280.3 & +0.7\% \\ \hline Population density & 1991 & 762 & 1442 & - & 244 & - & 713 & - \\ (thousands per km\({}^{2}\)) & 2018 & 494 & 985 & - & 226 & - & 507 & - \\ \hline Working population density & 1991 & 304 & 586 & - & 91 & - & 280 & - \\ (thousands per km\({}^{2}\)) & 2018 & 236 & 614 & - & 78 & - & 188 & - \\ \hline  & & & & & & & \\ \end{tabular} \({}^{1}\): Percentages correspond to the total amount in the Madrid urban region for the corresponding year. For the period 1991–2018, the variation in percentage is expressed.  
\end{table} 
Table 5: Evolution of the population, the working population and the artificial land area, distinguishing municipalities with and without a commuter station, between 1991 and 2018. Source: 1991 and 2018 Population Census (INE), Workers Affiliated to Social Security (Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations) and CORINE Land Cover (National Geographic Information Centre). Figure 2: Typology of municipalities by population and employment densities and by the rail commuters-to-population ratio in 2018.  
built with a more recreational purpose, to make the Guadarrama sierra, a National Park since 2013, accessible to Madrilenians. Two clearly different spatial logics are clearly shown in the map. For the municipalities adjacent to Madrid, those in the south show higher densities (medium-high) than those in the north (medium-low to very low). Regarding the railway axes, municipalities in the south and east axes (medium-high and medium-low) are denser than the ones in the northwest axis (medium-low to very low). Figure 2 indicates that urban density at the municipal scale does not mean higher ratios of commuter rail users. This is apparent in the northwest municipalities--which show great differences in commuters-to-population ratios and similar densities-- but also in the other axes and the first belt around Madrid. Figure 3 confirms that there is no relation between these two factors. This lack of relation between densities and levels of use may be due to several factors that we cannot test since relevant detailed data on services and use are not available. However, there are three we can suggest based on what the map shows. First, the analysis suggests that the production of the metropolitan urban space has been based on simultaneous growth with equal intensity in municipalities with and without commuter stations.