Role of railway traffic in public urban and suburban passenger transport (example of the City of Zagreb)

Abstract

One of the basic problems of all the mid-size and bigger European cities is permanent increase in the demand for passenger transport services, but also increase in individual automobile traffic. Apart from environmental pollution such urban mobility results in constant road congestions in urban areas, endangering also the safety of traffic participants. All the European cities face the mentioned problems, which directly affects the quality of living there, attractiveness and economic development. In order to increase mobility at the same time, and to reduce the congestion, traffic accidents and environmental pollution, it is necessary to reduce and limit the individual traffic in urban and suburban traffic systems, and increase the share of railway, which has a series of direct and indirect comparative advantages over other traffic modes (very low harmful emissions, lower energy consumption, higher speed which allows significant savings in travel time, stimulation of suburban zones development, etc.). Therefore, the railway should have a dominant role in urban and suburban passenger transport, i.e. it should be the fundamental part of the system, which is upgraded by other subsystems. The paper studies the role and significance of the railways in public urban and suburban passenger transport in the City of Zagreb. Apart from the analysis of the existing situation in public urban transport in the City of Zagreb and the current role of railway in the public urban transport (PUT) system, which has not been sufficiently used yet, special emphasis is given on the projection of the future role of railways in PUT flow, including the new routes which would along with the existing infrastructure allow its greater share and a more significant role in the PUT system.