Comparison of the quality of rail and air networks in West, Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The paper deals with an analysis of the rail and air passenger transport network spreading over West, Central and Eastern Europe. The rail network consists of the railway stations located in the particular places (cities) assumed to be the network nodes and the trains moving along the single/ double tracks (being a portion of railway infrastructure) connecting them (the network links). The air transport network consists of the airports located close to the particular places (cities) assumed to be the network's nodes, and the flights scheduled between them (the links of the air transport network). The number and type of rail and air connections between particular places (nodes), their surrogates defined as the passenger schedule delays (e.g. defer times), and schedule travel times between particular origins and destinations have been estimated for both networks. The analysis could be useful for the following purposes—various comparisons of the quality of services offered by different transport networks serving the passenger flows in Europe; synthesizing the generalized travel cost functions determining the conditions for choice of transport mode under given circumstances; design of specific monitoring tool being convenient for registrating the significant changes in the supply of transport capacities that may occur due to the variations of transport demand, overall and specific improvements in the transport infrastructure, operations and services, and general consolidation of the processes of European economic, social and political integrations.transeuropean networkspassenger transportrailairquality of services.