The article presents an analysis of Poland’s potential role as a European hub supporting the transportation of goods on the route between China and the EU. The authors point out a number of factors that can favour the development of a Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) hub in Poland. At the same time, they emphasise that higher demand for shipments through the New Eurasian Land Bridge within the SREB does not automatically mean that Poland will become the main hub on its European end. The study highlights several important aspects of competition as a result of which Poland is likely to adopt the role of a regional hub in Central and Eastern Europe.

Abstract:The analysis of the influence, exerted by the road projects on traffic intensity, was performed for the period 2000-2010 on the basis of data on the intensity of traffic of passenger cars and heavy good vehicles over the network of out-of-town national and provincial roads. An abrupt increase of the number of cars and the initiation of the intensive infrastructural undertakings contributed to an essential increase in the intensity of road traffic in Poland. Opening of a motorway or of an expressway entails a shift of a part of traffic, especially of a part of the transit traffic, from the parallel national roads over to the newly constructed road segments. A motorway has, in comparison with the parallel national road, an important competitive time-wise edge, but the situation gets complicated when a motorway fee is introduced. Local factors also exert a significant influence on the changes in traffic intensity.

Daily accessibility as one of the measures of transport accessibility is an indicator that can be used, i.a. as relations between a given area’s transport system and spatial planning are analysed. The indicator provides a broad field for assessing the effectiveness of the transport system and spatial planning operating at a given time, while simultaneously indicating directions by which these may be improved. The main aim of the work detailed here was to assess whether and to what extent the current road system, as well as the layout of railway lines and connections, creates positive conditions for the development of the network configuration of Polish metropolises. In terms of application, the aim is to assess the level of implementation of the polycentric metropolitan network referred to in the KPZK 2030 document (i.e. Poland’s National Spatial Planning Concept through to the year 2030). The paper thus presents an attempt to determine the potential for mutual functional and spatial connections to be established or reinforced within Poland’s system of voivodeship cities. That estimation of potential was based on analysis of daily (i.e. within-the-day) accessibility among the cities in question. The measurement of daily accessibility was based on the time of individual (car) travel or that involving rail transport. The analysis further included three variants for travel within the space of a given day (i.e. with 4, 6 or 8 hours available at the destination). This allowed for the development of a synthetic index of daily accessibility by which to characterise selected voivodship cities, which might then be classified in terms of their potential for establishing functional and spatial interrelatedness. The results of the research conducted offer a broad insight into the potential for selected voivodship cities to benefit from participation in the inter-agglomeration network. Moreover, thanks to our research, it was possible to identify peripheral areas (in which development potential was relatively lower) – which therefore require the kind of additional activation and compensatory action foreseen by KPZK 2030. Such actions should certainly relate to improved transport accessibility among the system’s largest centres.

Changes in the functions of Polish borders at the turn of the 20th and 21st century resulted in a reorientation of transport connections with countries of the former Soviet Union. One of the consequences of the phenomenon are considerable transformations in the scope of degree of use of rail transport in cross-border passenger traffic. The objective of the article is the dynamic assessment of the importance of railways in passenger traffic between Poland and Ukraine in the years 1990–2016 (including limited data for 2018), with consideration of the infrastructural and organizational factors. The analyses employed data on traffic of persons and vehicles on railway and road border crossings. They provided the basis for the determination of changes in the position of rail towards other modes of cross-border transport. The second source is Network Train Timetable (in Polish: Sieciowy Rozkład Jazdy Pociągów), used for the preparation of maps of connections functioning in selected time intervals. The analyzed period was characterized by a continuous decrease in the importance of rail in bilateral passenger traffic. It proved completely inflexible towards systemic and geopolitical transformations and intermodal competition of bus transport, and from 2013 also air transport. The spatial layout of rail connections suggested initial de-concentration involving several border crossings, and then concentration on two main lines. The vast general increase in traffic that occurred in recent years in the Ukrainian direction constitutes a chance for increasing the role of rail transport in a situation of overload of road border crossings.

Despite the ongoing processes of territorial integration, especially in Europe, there are still borders that fulfil their original function, namely that of a barrier. In some cases, this function has even been strengthened. Such is the case with Poland’s eastern border, which is also the external border of the EU and of the Schengen Area. This article presents the modal split of passenger traffic under conditions of frequent changes in the functions and permeability of borders, against the background of the key drivers behind the volumes of border traffic, i.e. the geopolitical, socio-economic, and infrastructural factors, both in relation to road, rail and border infrastructure. All sections of the border display some marginalisation of railway transport. The Polish eastern border is characterised by a sustained high share of bus transport, which pertains to all sections under analysis. The long waiting times for clearance when travelling in private cars was probably one of the factors behind the creation of the market for collective transport. Private transport is most dominant on the Polish-Russian border, while the largest share of crossings by bus is recorded on the Belarusian border.