Search

Transport accessibility is an important part of the process of regional transport services analysing as well as construction and optimization of road or railway networks. It is used in both public and individual transport and has its place in optimizing routes or pedestrians and cyclists. Analyses of transport accessibility belong to popular studies using many accessibility metrics. Public transport accessibility differs from evaluation of individual transport mainly due to lack of available data. In general, four main groups of public transport accessibility metrics have been distinguished: access to transit stops, duration of public transit journey, access to destinations and frequencies of connections. Whether we use distance, travel time, spatial distribution of activities or other costs for accessibility, the main source for quantification and frequency analysis are human flows and public and individual transport connections. The paper addresses analysis of public transport accessibility using frequencies of public transport connections in selected time intervals. Both, bus and train connections between all municipalities in the Czech Republic are analysed using developed software TRAM. The frequency analysis for one-hour intervals reflects conditions of public transport accessibility in the Czech Republic and show significant differences of the level of accessibility during a day what can often limit possible commuting to work. The relationships between distances and number of connections are not equal through the country and demonstrate another aspect of regional differences in terms of the level of public transport services. Results of regional differences will be used for gravity modelling of spatial interactions between municipalities. Results are compared with outputs of the Slovak study of inter-urban relationships between towns and cities of Slovakia using public transportation [2] and selected other similar analyses. Transport accessibility modelling is used for further development in transport planning, decision making and space-time distribution of provided services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modal split between individual and public transport is going to be more and more unbalanced in favour of individual car transport almost in all developed countries in the world. The national as well as regional government have to rationalise the level of ordered public transport connections and this may lead to decrease below a minimal level of transport serviceability. VSB-Technical University of Ostrava has prepared a database of public transport connections for needs of Integrated Portal of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic since 2006. This database contains data about public transport connections between all municipalities covering the development during six years in the Czech Republic. Based on this data, national-, regional- and also micro-regional level of transport accessibility can be analysed using several factors. This paper presents the developed software TRAM used for the time-tables evaluation and also describes possible utilisation of such massive data source. The development of level of accessibility for several times during a day is depicted in maps, the possibility of return connection is also considered and hot or cold spots in relation to positive or negative development are localised. This approach of evaluating the public transport serviceability on such local level can be used in many countries to localise areas where the level of public transport accessibility is decreasing or conversely increasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]