The impact of public transport on regional development in the Trnava self-governing region

Abstract

The accessibility of regional centers by public transport in a defined area is a very specific problem. Depending on the organization of public transport, there is a potentially related phenomenon – social transport exclusion. The aim of the study is to express the existence of a relationship between public transport and regional development in the rural self-governing region Trnava. At the same time, we identify municipalities – more precisely areas – with reduced transport accessibility in relation to their regional development and we determine the most advantageous means of public transport for the population who does not have the possibility to use a car. The procedure was to use an electronic database of train and bus timetables to obtain information about the studied characteristics for the return journey during the 24 hours of working days (Tuesday). We found that rail and combined transport have better quality in about half of the region’s municipalities. The Pearson correlation coefficient of product of moments indicated that the value of the correlation between the number of points for public transport and points for regional development is only 0.36, and therefore there is no strong connection between them. However, the individual extreme and average values of these indicators and especially their sub-components have shown us that there is a certain dependence between these values. The results show that despite a lower impact on public transport on regional development, it has a more decisive influence, leading to the strengthening of public transport.