The article analyses railway transport markets in three neighbouring Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany (specifically Bavaria and Saxony), with a focus on regional transportation. It examines the organisational form of public transport resulting from regionalisation and provides comparative case studies of regional train services in these countries. The article points out the organisational differences in public transportation between the studied regions and tries to connect these results with the supply of regional train services on various types of lines and in different geographical areas.

No abstract

In the first half of 2020, the global pandemic of the COVID-19 virus became a phenomenon affecting all spheres of human life. Measures against the spread of the virus have led to restrictions in life in public spaces and have also affected the transport sector. These impacts consisted of two types - firstly, the number of connections was reduced due to a drop in transport demand, and secondly, it was necessary to comply with hygiene measures on the part of carriers and passengers. The impacts of these measures could be monitored at all spatial levels, from global to local. This paper deals with the course of the so-called first wave of the pandemic in the Czech Republic in relation to public transport and its organization. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of these measures in relation to general government regulations and their subsequent implementation at the national, regional (county) and local (selected large cities) level. Furthermore, the paper uses three case studies to show what changes long-distance domestic transport has undergone on selected routes. There was a significant reduction in the number of long-distance connections, some lines were not operated at all, and of course, all cross-border connections were canceled. The paper covers the period from the turn of February and March 2020, when the measures began to take effect, to the end of May 2020, when almost all the adopted measures were gradually relaxed. The paper concludes with a summary of the basic features of the organization of transport during the validity of the special measures, as well as areas where significant changes took place and whose consequences may persist after the pandemic subsides.

The lengthy timespan of thirty years shall be a playground of many changes and variations in all spheres of social life and technical world. Public transportation is an integral part of both mentioned fields and cooperates with their changes. The urban region of Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, is the region with a strong core (city of Brno) and thus it is a rail hub as well. Since 1980, the whole urban region underwent several changes in an industrial structure (from industrialization and preference of heavy industries to de-industrialization and dominance of services), a social organization (transition from industrial to post-industrial patterns of life, from urbanization to suburbanization and subruralization), an arrangement of the settlement system (from densely-populated estates on the edges of the city to suburbanization) and transportation patterns (moving from public transportation to individual road transportation). The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of changes in train public transportation in Brno urban region between 1980 and 2010. As a basis of the analysis, timetables of 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010 were taken. There have been analysed all stations with commuting time of passenger trains during the day less or equal 60 minutes. Results of timetable analysis are put into the context of other socioeconomic terms. The main outcomes show little changes in the length of transport time, in the distribution of trains during the day, in differences between weekday (in this paper Wednesday) and weekend, in the usage of express trains and in train lines. The paper also compares conditions before and after establishing the Integrated Transport System in South Moravia Region in 2004.

hosted the fourth annual meeting of transport geographers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia on October 11 and 12, 2018. The Transport Geography Workshop is a regularly occurring event held every two years by a different academic workplace. The workshop takes the form of an informal platform through which participants are acquainted with current events in the field of Czech and Slovak transport geography. The focus of the workshop is actually in line with current discussions about the present and the future of our discipline, which are taking place at other levels as well, see, for example, current texts in the key journal