Analysis of the Influence of Socio-Economic Factors on the Volume of Railway Passenger Transport in Łódź Region

Abstract

This article presents the determination of the weights of socio-economic factors affecting the volume of passenger transport on individual railway lines located in the Łodź region. Passenger transport on these lines is operated by the carrier Łodź Agglomeration Railway. The transport data containing the number of transported passengers and the transport work done in 2017 were used for the analysis. A partial correlation coefficient was used to obtain values of weights of the analyzed factors. During the calculation of correlation coefficients, transport gauges were used as explanatory variables (dependent variables). The socio-economic factors influencing the volume of rail passenger transport on individual lines were taken into account. To calculate the partial correlation coefficient, a correlation matrix, containing interrelations between all analyzed variables, was used. During calculating the weights of particular factors affecting the volume of rail passenger transport on individual lines located in the Łodź region for each socio-economic factor, the absolute value of partial correlation coefficients was summed for the number of trains and the number of transported passengers. Then the summed value was divided by the number of analyzed gauges describing the volume of transport. It allowed to determine the weights of individual factors affecting the volume of passenger transport on railway lines in the Łodź region. The obtained weights can be used in the future during the multi-criteria analysis of railway lines in the Łodź region. These weights allow to avoid the subjective assessments of experts, that have been often used in previous analyzes.