ATTITUDE OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES TO TECHNOLOGIES IN URBAN RAIL TRANSPORT BASED ON THE EXAMPLE OF SELECTED MORAVIAN AND SILESIAN TOWNS BETWEEN 1860 AND 1914 1 (original) (raw)

From Vienna to Ostrava--from Austria to Czechoslovakia: Urban Rail Transport in the Czech Lands (on the Example of the Ostrava Agglomeration), 1894--1924

The following study focuses on the development of urban rail transport in the Czech Lands before 1914, specifically regarding electrification and municipalization. The second part of the study looks at the issue of nostrification of a transport company in the aftermath of World War I. Based on a case of a specific company, the study analyses its causes, course and consequences, while placing it in the historical context of the making of so-called greater cities. It examines the economic and political motives that lead to the decision to move the transportation company’s headquarters to Czechoslovakia even before being prompted to do so by the state authorities. It follows the impacts of the war on the running of the company, and the gradual permeating of members of the local authorities into the company’s board of directors. Taking into account the transformation of the Ostrava city agglomeration into a modern metropolis, it analyses the factors that culminated in the local authority of Moravská Ostrava joining the transport company as the majority shareholder, as well as the consequences for the subsequent development of the company.

Tram, trolleybus and bus services in Eastern-European socialist urban planning: Case studies of Magdeburg, Ostrava and Oryol (1950s and 1960s)

The Journal of Transport History, 2020

This study examines urban collective transport policy in the city planning of three European countries under the Socialist Bloc in the 1950s and 1960s. The main aim is to account for the success of the private car in approaches to urban infrastructure and to understand how this affected tramway system planning. This then leads to a new perspective in understanding the conflict between the adoption of transport vehicles: The diversity of argument in tramway planning has been analysed using official publications, professional literature, and the urban and transport plans of the three case study cities. It results that planning solutions prioritised more national and local conditions, their logic and the singularity of their characteristics over the specific principles related to the ideology of the communist regimes.

URBAN RAIL TRANSPORT AND ITS ROLE IN A MODERNIZING SOCIETY AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY

This paper deals with the issue of building urban transport in Ostrava and Brno at the turn of the 20th century. The aim of this paper is to present public transport as an important part of the modernization procces of society in those days. The internal structure and financial situation of individual transport companies have been analyzed, as well as their relationship to their respective municipal governments and the transformation of these relationships during the researched period.

Bus and train connections between towns in Lower Silesia under different operational models:Competition or complementarity?

Moravian Geographical Reports

Relationships between the activities of bus carriers and rail passenger traffic (and the railway offer) are examined in this article. The study was carried out in peripheral areas located at the Polish and Czech borderlands in Lower Silesia province. High quality rail transport generally increases the demand for transport services. Therefore, the proper development of transport offer plays a key role in the functioning of public transport systems, the backbone of which is rail transport. The study also shows that under conditions of transport market deregulation, bus carriers have developed a competitive network which is not complementary to rail transport. As a consequence, the deregulation of the transport market has increased the risk of transport exclusion.

Czechoslovak light rail — Legacy of socialist urbanism or opportunity for the future

This article focuses on the development of the Czechoslovak 'rychlá tramvaj' ('fast tram') systems in Prague, Bratislava and Brno. Its aim is to examine whether these systems meet the requirements of light rail and whether it is possible to continue their development as a functional light rail city transport system. A further aim is a detailed analysis of the conditions and contexts affecting the gradual development of 'rychlá tramvaj' schemes in three selected metropolises in the former Czechoslovakia. Urban development in Czechoslovakia was affected by the socialist planning system that constructed large housing estates on the edges of metropolises during the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, many commuters had to be moved between them and city centres daily; therefore, the necessity for high-capacity 'rychlá tramvaj' connections became apparent. After socio-political changes in 1989, a market economy was introduced and the trends of commercial and residential suburbanization have modified the spatial structure of the cities, and mobility has begun to be increasingly dependent on cars. In response to this, city councils departed from further development of 'rychlá tramvaj' schemes. Currently, the emphasis on sustainable mobility is apparent, principally because of smart city solutions, an environmental focus and a common European transport policy; thus, municipalities are rediscovering the virtues of light rail lines again. Because the 'rychlá tramvaj' systems from the 1970s and 1980s are still in operation, transforming them into modern light rail systems appears to be a convenient and cheap solution. Fast tram ('rychlá tramvaj') Prague Bratislava Brno

Historical Interrelationship of Railways and Cities from an Urban Viewpoint

TST. Transportes, Servicios y Telecomunicaciones

This paper offers a conceptual overview of the state of the art relating to the historical interre­lationships between railways and cities from the point of view of town planning, covering the good century and a half that there have been railways in the Iberian Peninsula. It addresses both urban and railway history, reconsidering major issues in this relationship. These are: 1) the tracks of lines as they cross cities and the role they play in urban life, 2) the passenger buildings of stations, seen as a focus of urban centrality, 3) the developing complexity of cities and rail­ways, together with the installation of new road and port infrastructures, and 4) the problems emerging from urban ex­pansion in the final third of the twentieth century, mostly after the restoration of democracy, specifi­cally the question of the limited permeability of rail tracks and the interpretation as a social barrier of the physical barrier thus constituted by the railway. An idea that railways are a ...

Regional Railway Transport in Czech, Austrian and German Decentralised and Regionalised Transport Markets 1

The article analyses railway transport markets in three neighbouring Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany (specifically Bavaria and Saxony), with a focus on regional transportation. It examines the organisational form of public transport resulting from regionalisation and provides comparative case studies of regional train services in these countries. The article points out the organisa-tional differences in public transportation between the studied regions and tries to connect these results with the supply of regional train services on various types of lines and in different geographical areas.

A “poor man’s carriage”: system building and social interactivity in UK urban tramway development, 1860–1890

Industrial and Corporate Change

Large technical systems (LTS) are socially structuring, reconfiguring governance practices and social norms. In this article, socio-technical dynamics that influenced the emergence of UK urban tramways, as examples of local LTS, are investigated, considering the role of dominant discourses in normalizing new systems. It examines how the 1870 Tramways Act attempted to adjudicate between competing interests, which shaped the context for new tramway routes. The concept of system builders is used to explain how new projects recruit public support. This case identifies constraints faced by system builders and indicates that their interaction with prevailing socio-political contexts impacts the system development and stability.

Organisational and Financial Determinants for the Metropolitan Rail Transport Implementation in Poland with Potential Improvement Prospects

Problemy Kolejnictwa - Railway Reports, 2021

The article addresses the issue of financing and organising metropolitan rail transport. It identifies challenges for this segment, which include the absence of organisational and funding obligations on the part of metropolitan government structures. It describes the forms of vertical co-operation which are legally permissible for local government units and identifies the drawbacks in this respect. It cites the examples of management of the metropolitan railway transport in Poland, operated despite the existing restrictions. The absence of complete legal and financial instruments providing metropolis with legal certainty in the organisation of metropolitan transport is identified. Specific solutions are recommended, referring to information on dealing the described problem outside Poland. Keywords: public transport organisation, rail transport, metropolitan areas, integration of offers+, combined ticket

BUILDING STATE CAPACITY IN INTERWAR ROMANIA. RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE AND POLITICAL CENTRALIZATION

Romanian Journal of Sociological Studies, 2018

The article sets out to explore the role played by railway infrastructure in the political centralization process in interwar Romania. In the theoretical part, the article argues that the concept of radial state is heuristically more appropriate than both state-building and state capacity for illustrating how the public transportation system, with an emphasis on railway infrastructure, underpins the bureaucratic accumulation of modern state. In its empirical part, the article seeks to demonstrate that political centralization in Romania, from the perspective of the public transportation system, depended mostly on railway infrastructure. The article argues that railway infrastructure was turned into an exclusive domain of public interest once Romania became independent in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish war (1877-1878). Then, the article explains how a project of building the radial state through railway infrastructure in interwar Romania emerged right after WWI. The article also lays emphasis on the way railway infrastructure has been systematically favorized over road infrastructure during the interwar period.