Urban Research: TRANSPORT POLICIES IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

via PEPPER

The formerly socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have observed profound political and economic changes because the demise of Communism within the late 1980s and early 1990s. Each country features its own particular good reputation for transformation to some freer, more democratic, more market-based society. The timing and particular circumstances from the revolutions in each country vary. To this day, there are considerable differences among countries within the extent that their political systems are fully democratic and just how market-based their economies are. Thus, it’s kind of risky to generalize relating to this group of diverse countries.

Without exception, however, every formerly socialist country in Central and Eastern Europe has a minimum of moved toward greater democracy and greater market orientation. In each and every country, that political economic shift has produced a corresponding transport revolution. The obvious indicator of this revolution may be the dramatic development in levels of private car ownership and employ, and a corresponding decline in public places transport use. The modal transfer of passenger transport is reflected in most countries by similar alterations in goods transport, with substantial shifts from publicly managed rail transport to privately operated and operated trucking firms. As the increasing reliance upon roadway transport had already begun during the old age of the socialist era, the movement toward market-based capitalism greatly accelerated it, prompted by striking alterations in government transport policies. Indeed, a vital thesis of the overview is the fact that policy changes were accountable for virtually all of the enormous changes seen in Central and Eastern Europe from 1988 with the 1990s, demonstrating how crucially policies affect every factor of our transport systems.

This review concentrates on three Central Countries in Europe for detailed analysis: the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. We include the former East Germany, whose political, economic, social, and transport systems dramatically changed after German reunification in 1990. Those four formerly socialist countries possess the most reliable long-term number of transport statistics, enabling better analysis of the transport systems, travel behaviour. Moreover, they’re typical of developments in other Central and Eastern Countries in Europe as well, with many transport trends finding yourself in the same direction whether or not the magnitudes vary from one country to a different. This overview is restricted mainly to urban passenger transport, although we briefly note developments in long-distance passenger travel and goods transport too.

Pictures of old trams in Prague: