Towards Sustainable Development and Preventing Exclusions—Determining Road Accessibility at the Sub-Regional and Local Level in Rural Areas of Poland

Abstract

The improvement in a regions’ accessibility that accounts for various means of inter-regional transport and inter-regional communication is one of the main determinants of sustainable regional development. This study focuses on road accessibility in rural areas where an insufficient number and scope of international and domestic investments can lead to an imbalance in the transport infrastructure. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate road accessibility at the level of the NUTS4 units in view of their sustainable development and their divergence from rural units that are less distant from the main transport routes. The studied area—a province—is situated in the northeast of Poland. Data concerning the travel time, condition, and density of the road network were analysed to develop and compare the measures of road accessibility in individual units and to perform an overall assessment of the NUTS4 units. Partial indices were calculated with the support of the QGIS and ArcGIS software. Peripheral regions in post-socialist countries appear to be particularly underinvested in terms of the transport, including at the local and regional level. The applied methodology supported the presentation of problem peripheral areas that are underinvested and threatened with exclusion.

Infrastructure of the Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) Based on Examples of Italy and Poland

“…Additionally, a percentage synthetic quality indicator of Polish and Italian geoportals will be determined, calculated by summing up the percentage range of functionality and verifying compliance with the Ubiquitous Public Access Contextual Information Model (UPA) defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 19100. 14.825 Geographic Data Files (GDF) standard for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) [47][48][49]. The other method is to evaluate the results of the validation of datasets/services in the INSPIRE Geoportal Metadata Validator and ETF test projects from github to test the compliance of services with the requirements of the INSPIRE technical guidelines [50].…”

“…For the real estate cadastre, models based on the Land Administration Domain Model (LADM), defined within ISO 19152, were built [41][42][43][44][45]. For the real estate cadastre, models based on the Land Administration Domain Model (LADM), defined within ISO 19.152 [46], were built using the ISO 14.825 Geographic Data Files (GDF) standard for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) [47][48][49]. The other method is to evaluate the results of the validation of datasets/services in the INSPIRE Geoportal Metadata Validator and ETF test projects from github to test the compliance of services with the requirements of the INSPIRE technical guidelines [50].…”

Sustainable Transport: An Efficient Transportation Network—Case Study

“…Can sustainable transport be found in Vilnius? Peripheral regions in post-socialist countries appear to be particularly underinvested in terms of their transport, including at the local and regional level [7]. The authors focused on analyzing Vilnius for use of sustainable transport principles.…”

“…People living in the individual areas shall aim to develop sustainable transport systems, in particular road networks, which will enable them to achieve appropriate level of growth both in the economic, social and environmental spheres [5,6]. However, we have to admit that it is the environmental aspect and the related need to overcome natural barriers that is one of the challenges we face when creating a transport network [7]. Moreover, Lithuanian researchers emphasize that modernization of transport infrastructure "should ensure sustainable mobility, communication of individuals and establish effective relations of business agents while providing support for the national economy" [8].…”

The Evaluation of Transport Exclusion in the Peripheral Cross-Border Areas of Central Europe in the Context of Applicability of Information-Based Carpooling

“…Transport exclusion and the resultant absolute increase in the share of private transport in commuter transport causes higher environmental costs due to exhaust emissions from private means of transport used by inhabitants of remote areas, which also requires appropriate actions on the part of local authorities [12][13][14]. In such a situation, transport exclusion becomes a serious obstacle to the implementation of the concept of sustainable development-from the perspective of both the entire system of the local economy (or even the entire local community) and individual entities [15].…”