Spatial patterns of transport accessibility and traffic load in Czechia: towards a typology of the new road infrastructure impacts

ABSTRACT

We analyse the impacts caused by the construction of new road infrastructure between 2005 and 2015 in Czechia, EU. The results provide an answer to which municipalities were affected by the construction of new road infrastructure or how the accessibility of individual regional centres changed. The study works with two key variables: a change in the accessibility of regional centres and a change in traffic load inside municipalities. The key output of the analysis is a map, thanks to which it is possible to assess the impact of the new roads in a broad context. The effects on accessibility to regional centres are much more concentrated in only a few areas where significant transport infrastructure has been lacking so far (e.g. east, southeast, southwest, or northwest part of Czechia). Impacts on traffic load are, on the other hand, distributed more evenly in space, not only on the main transport routes.

KEYWORDS:

• New road infrastructure
• accessibility change
• traffic intensity
• infrastructure effects

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Directorate of Roads and Motorways for providing data on the traffic census and road construction and colleagues from the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development for their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

Data containing the results of the analysis at the municipality level are available from the corresponding author, Marek Petráš, upon reasonable request. The Directorate of Roads and Motorways in Czechia provided, upon request, default data about road openings and traffic loads (here and here are shown in the interactive form). Background data were obtained from open sources like Open Street Maps (here) or ArcČR Database (here).

Notes

1 In the case of Pardubice, it is necessary to reflect on the railway network; this city is an important railway junction, and when counting commutes to Pardubice by rail, the region of influence is much closer to the administrative form of the region. On the other hand, the main roads from the eastern part of the region are historically directed more towards Hradec Králové and Olomouc.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by the Charles University funding from the project SVV 260566.