• Energy Research
• Sustainability close

The discussion about the impact of the construction of new transport infrastructure on economic growth has been going on in scientific journals for decades. The objective of the article is to assess the importance of the development of transport infrastructure for regional development in Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC). The analysis mainly concerns investments made with the support of European Union structural funds. Particular attention was paid to transport relations between the major metropolises. It is assumed that they perform the functions of growth poles and generate the diffusion of development processes also into the peripheral area. In addition, a study of changes in potential accessibility in road transport was carried out. The temporal scope of the study covers a period of 12 years, when the scale of new investment was greatest. The results thus obtained are set against a backdrop of economic development indices (changes in GDP over the period under study). The study confirmed that the impact on economic development mainly takes place at the beginning of the development of the transport infrastructure. On this basis, a dynamic spatial sequence proposal was formulated regarding the dependence between investments in infrastructure and the development of regions and metropolises.

The main purpose of the paper is to present a methodical approach to differences in changes in intra-national potential accessibility. Research concerns level of accessibility and its dispersion, both for freight and passenger transport regarding four transport modes. The main added value of the paper is an indication of how to monitor changes in the accessibility of many modes of transport at the municipal level, as a result of investment processes, while taking into account the available data sources, both on the land use data and travel times, with the support of regional and central offices. We focus on the intensive development of transport infrastructure after Poland’s accession to the EU. We conclude that outcomes of reducing territorial differences in accessibility are diverse depending on the transport mode: from a generally positive effect in passenger transport to varied effects in freight transport, including particularly highly polarising effects in rail transport. The research method provides the possibility of analysing multimodal changes in accessibility concerning numerous transport modes for any large country or group of countries. Certain development opportunities of the model to be implemented in the future are discussed.