DEVELOPMENT OF ROAD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE IN POLAND

 

Mesjasz-Lech A.

(Management Faculty, Czestochowa University of Technology, Poland)

 

The road transport is one of basic elements of the transport infrastructure, whose the main goal is to ensure conditions for social-economic system development. The development of the road network can afford to eliminate development barriers of the country and the same to increase the chance to utilize competitive advantages.

 

The transport infrastructure is one of determinants of countries' and regions' development. Its basic goal is the assurance of communication availability of the country and interregional and international connections. Significance of the transport in creating essential condition of social-economic system development is emphasised in many definitions of the infrastructure [1]. It is resulting from the fact that the infrastructure is useful for people's mobility and for flow of every goods in the economy. The transport infrastructure included three basic groups of elements [1]:

1.   roads of all transport branches,

2.   transport points (e.g. seaports, stations, airports),

3.   auxiliary installations which enable to service of roads and transport points.

The development of the road network can afford to eliminate development barriers of the country and the same increasing of the chance to utilize competitive advantages, so like the geographical location or big size of the market.

Car roads are the part of the linear infrastructure of the road transport. In table 1. the division of national roads in Poland is presented.

 

Table 1- The total length of national roads in Poland, divided into categories (in km)

Motorways ...	.673
Expressways . .. Of which: Expressways with one lane in each direction.. Expressways with two lanes in each direction ...	.230   ...70 .160
Other categories of national roads .	...17 352
Total length of national roads	..18 255

Source: [7]

 

Motorways and expressways, being the basis of the linear infrastructure of the road transport, they pose only 4.95% of total length of national roads (3.7% - motorways, 1.25% - expressways). And so the development of the road network in Poland is the priority in development of the national transport system. On fig. 1. the current and planned network of national roads are presented. 

a. Existing national roads                           b. The planned motorway network

Fig. 1- Existing national roads and the planned motorway network in Poland

Source: [7]

 

The motorways are marked with the black line in figure 1. National roads of Poland should become the part of the Trans-European network which is the important element of European competitiveness and permits to connect peripheral regions with central markets of the European Union [2]. Integration with the Trans-European Transport Network TEN-T results from the fact that transport problems should be solved on the regional or transcontinental level, rather than local or national, because integration of action with partners is the condition of existence on the Pan-European market [4].

The road transport is dominant transport branch in Poland. However the lack of the developed road transport infrastructure is the weakness of the Polish economy. Among weaknesses of the Polish economy regarding the road transport, taken into consideration in the CSF document ("Community Framework support. Promoting economic growth and an environment for job creation "- promoting of the economic growth and conditions favouring the increase in employment) one can rated [5]:

-     existence of bottlenecks in the road traffic, especially in the area of urban agglomerations,

-     a low level of traffic safety,

-     increase of the road transport scale beyond level of institutional and financial abilities of the country.

Among the result of lack of roads of high standard can be numerated [8]:

-     restraining the international trade with UE countries and other neighbouring countries,

-      limiting of the chance to attract the foreign capital,

-     reducing the mobility of labour force,

-     reducing of competitiveness of the Polish economy,

-     delay of  the process of the country modernizing.

Trends of development of the road transport infrastructure for Poland have been taken into consideration in following documents:

-     National Plan of Development,

-     Community Support Framework. Promoting economic growth and an environment for job creation.

Moreover activities referring to the road transport infrastructure will be taken within the confines of the Cohesion Fund and within the confines of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Within the confines of ERDF will be realized activities which are expressed in two operational programmes:

-     Sectoral Operational Programme Transport (SOP Transport)

-     Integrated Operational Programme of Regional Development (IOPRD).

Sectoral Operational Programme Transport will take activities concerning the national road network and various activities which have the functional character. IOPRD will complement the Cohesion Fund and SOP Transport activities on the regional level, being governed by two goals [5]:

-     connecting smaller regional metropolitan centres with national and Trans-European transport network, enabling a whole society to derive general benefits from better accessibility to the international network,

-     improving the public urban transport in main urban agglomerations and cities, improving the conditions of these centres as environment which favour the local economic growth.

In the case of the transport infrastructure one can numerate following basic medium-term goals anticipated in mentioned documents [5]:

-     decrease of transaction costs resulting from the low quality and low density of the road infrastructure,

-     decrease of environment cots resulting from unsustainable development of transport sector and low quality of the road system,

-     decrease of high economic and social costs resulting from traffic accidents through the increase of safety level in road transport,

-     improvement of accessibility to urban agglomerations and increase of economic developmental potential of city centres,

-     supporting of regional sustainable development.

In the table 2 methods were restated of putting into practice of action taken into consideration in basic axes of development of the domestic economy.

        

Table 2- The basic development axes defined in National Plan of Development and manners of their implementation

Development axe	Manner of implementation
	Community Support Framework	Cohesion Fund	National Programmes
Increase of infrastructure investments connected with economic growth, life quality and environment protection	Sectoral Operational Programme Transport	Transport part	Strategy of utilize of Cohesion Fund ; Strategy of transport infrastructure development for years 2004-2006 and following years; Programme Infrastructure – the key for development (Programme of motorways and expressways building)

Source: [8]

 

Basic trends of changes in the field of transport have to take into consideration [8]:

-     ensuring efficient transport connections being useful for intensification of the trade of Poland, especially with EU countries,

-     contributing to improvement of the infrastructure condition (the infrastructure condition should not be the factor discouraging foreign investors from investing in Poland),

-     improvement of availability of main urban agglomerations in Poland, which are the most important centres of the economic growth,

-     support of development of regions and equalization differences between regions,

-     improvement of safety in the transport, especially elimination of high social costs and road accidents,

-     reducing environment costs resulting from unsustainable development of the transport sector,

-     adapting the basic road network in Poland to the load capacity standard binding in the EU,

-     development of multimodal systems and logistic services,

-     utilizing modern information systems in the transport.

Transport policy, especially regarding the road transport, should be strictly connected with the economic, regional and employment policy. Therefore it is necessary to aim for [8]:

−    connecting investment projects in the field of transport with plans of increasing the trade, attracting investors, strengthening key urban metropolises  and increasing the traffic through Poland,

−    applying instruments of active support of multimodal transport development and of building of logistic centres and container terminals by the country,

−    choice of infrastructure investments which are economic effective,

−    connecting central investment plans with regional plans,

−    financing the investment which are designed to equalize differences between regions, even if economic efficiency of these investments is lower than the effectiveness of investments in regions which are characterized by the higher level of the economic growth.

The most important are road investments. The basic investments which should be realized in years 2007-2013 are:

-     continuation of the motorways building,

-     expansion of the expressways network,

-     continuation of national roads rebuilding to the load capacity of 115 kN/axle, especially roads creating the Trans-European Transport Network,

-     construction of the A1 motorway on the whole length within the confines of priority investments which have European importance.

The road transport infrastructure can be characterized by indicators included its qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Qualitative characteristics make possible estimation of satisfaction level of transport needs, quantitative characteristics describe state of the transport infrastructure [6]. In table 3. groups of indicators regarding product and result in the field of realization of priority axis defined in National Plan of Development regarding the road transport are presented.

 

Table 3- Products and result indicators in the field of realization of priority axis including development of road transport infrastructure

	Name of indicator	Value in the base year	Estimated value in the target year 2013 (2015)
Priority Axis: TEN-T road  transport network
Product indicators	Motorways (built) (km)	0	477 (636)
	Expressways (built) (km)	0	1132 (1310)
	Roads strengthen to load capacity of 115 kN/axle (km)	0	375 (500)
Result indicators	Shortening the time of passage by passenger cars through modernised sections (min.)	0	273 (364)
	Shortening the time of passage by lorries through modernised sections (min.)	0	553 (738)
	Name of indicator	Value in the base year	Estimated value in the target year 2013 (2015)
Priority Axis: Transport safety and national transport networks
Product indicators	Built and modernised expressways (km)	0	512 (669)
	National roads strengthened to load capacity of 115 kN/axle (km)	0	225 (300)
	Number of reconstructed dangerous places	0	15 (20)
Result indicators	Shortening passage time by passenger cars through modernised roads (min.)	0	18 (24)
	Shortening passage time by lorries through modernised roads (min.)	0	40 (54)
	Number of fatalities in road accidents (per 100 thousand inhabitants and in absolute numbers)	14,3 5444	8,5 (7,4) 2800
Priority Axis: Road infrastructure in Eastern Poland
Product indicators	Expressways built and modernised (km)	0	268 (268)
Result indicators	Shortening passage time by passenger cars on modernised road sections (min.)	0	55 (55)
	Shortening passage time by lorries on modernised road sections (min.)	0	122 (122)

Source: [3]

 

Fig. 2- The density of the existing road network indicator in selected EU countries in 2004

Source: Own elaboration

 

The one of the lowest value of density of the existing road network indicator in EU countries can be observed in Poland. It is one of the lowest indicators compared with countries where the road transport is dominant transport branch. Low indicators for Spain and Finland are caused by development of other transport branches which are dominant in given country.

The development of the existing road network in Poland will contribute to achieving a lot of benefits, especially to improvement of international trade, to creation of extra chance to attract  foreign capital and to increase  mobility of persons in the production age. It is the result of connections of the transport with the economic growth.

 

References

[1]          Gołembska Elżbieta (red.), Kompendium wiedzy o logistyce, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa-Poznań 2001

[2]          High Level Group on the Trans-European Transport Network. Report. European Commission In Charge of Transport and Energy. Brussels, June 2003

[3]          Operational Programme INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENVIRONMENT The National Strategic Reference Framework for the years 2007-2013, the Ministry of Regional Development, Warsaw, 29 November 2006

[4]          Stajniak Maciej, Wpływ infrastruktury transportowej na rozwój biznesu, w: Wybrane zagadnienia logistyki stosowanej, Komitet Transportu Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Rocznik 2006

[5]          Szlachta Jacek, Ekspertyza Narodowy Plan Rozwoju i Podstawy Wsparcia Wspólnoty - analiza zmian. Wnioski dla NPR na lata 2007-2013, Ministerstwo Gospodarki, Pracy i Polityki Społecznej, Warszawa 2003

[6]          Szuster Mariusz, Wpływ inwestycji infrastrukturalnych na rozwój krajów i regionów, w: Gołembska Elżbieta (red.), Współczesne kierunki rozwoju logistyki, PWE 2006

[7]          www.gddkia.gov.pl

[8]          Założenia Narodowego Planu Rozwoju na lata 2007-2013, Warszawa, 30 kwietnia 2004 r.