Conditionings of Regional Railway Transport in Poland on the Example of a Selected Area

Abstract

The share (modal split) of passenger transports in the railway transport in Europe including Poland, accounts for ~7%. This reflects rather low share of this sector in the passenger transport. Therefore, the transport policy of the European Union aims at increasing the number of train transports considering it to be the most ecological. Due to some typical features of this transport branch it provides transport services over medium and long distances (more than 300 km). In this context a question should be asked: does development of regional railway transport means which travel over distances several dozen kilometres make sense in Poland? The analysis was performed for an administrative region in the central part of Poland. This region is typical in terms of social-economic and macroeconomic development and spatial development. It covers an area of ~18 thousand km2 and has ~2.1 mln inhabitants. In order to answer the question, extensive research has been conducted concerning conditionings of the analyzed region in terms of railway transport development, including a survey among the inhabitants and people travelling by car and those using public transport means (including railway transport). The research included both ‘a travel journal’ of the respondents on a typical weekday, and transport means preferences as well as assessment of passenger transport functioning as part of public transport system in the analyzed region of Poland. Major analyses of transport demand prognoses are based on simulation analyses results for which transport models were used, constructed for three social-development scenarios: optimistic, stabilization and pessimistic. The results of analyses showed that current conditionings are not beneficial for the development of regional railway passenger transports. It is caused by many factors, including: relatively small access to railway transport, small population density, constant drop in the number of inhabitants, aging of the society, very small occupancy of this transport means, very low predicted values of passenger currents, rising costs of these transport maintenance, small interest of inhabitants in the development of this transport system with simultaneous preference for travel by car. The results of analyses showed that regional railway transport system in Poland are uncompetitive as compared to regional bus transport system which are characterized by better availability and flexibility of connections, shorter time of travel, 10-times lower maintenance costs and smaller harmfulness to the environment (taking into consideration that regional railway transports uses mainly diesel locomotives as they are cheaper to run as compared to electrical tractions; whereas in regional bus transports more and more often new, ecological transport means which meet ecological norms of cleanliness of exhaust fumes).