Public transportation accessibility in the Katowice conurbation, Poland

The article is devoted to the issue of accessibility of public transportation in the area of the Katowice conurbation. The scope of the research was local mass transit, that is tram, trolleybus and bus transportation. The research area, was established on the basis of the shape created by the transport network, and included 48 communities located in the central part of the Silesian voivodeship. In its model depiction, public transportation accessibility was treated as one of three interconnecting aspects, along with the infrastructural development and the offer level. In research on spatial accessibility, the method of model equidistances that replace the isochrones of distance to a stop was applied. The best accessibility to this service was observed in Siemianowice Śląskie, while the worst was in the community of Wielowieś. The research results have revealed significant discrepancies between public transportation accessibility itself, and the level offered. Research on the time of transit to the centre was performed with the use of an indicator constructed with the help of the point and rank method and this showed that the best accessibility to the centre was observed in Chorzów. The research on the time of transit between community centres was performed for all the communities with the use of direct connections and transfers. The shortest average time of transit was characteristic for Katowice, whereas the longest was in the community of Pilchowice. The research on transportation connections of public transportation completed the picture of accessibility. A measure of these connections was established as an average total number of inter-community connections for all days of the week. Katowice was characteristic of the best spatially developed network of connections whereas the most developed connections were observed between Katowice and Chorzów. The comparison of public transportation accessibility in the system of communities was performed with the quality classification method, on the basis of four previously characterized meters. According to the synthetic indicator, the best accessibility was in Katowice and the worst in the rural community of Bobrowniki. The results of the conducted research have confirmed the presence of dependence between accessibility and population density – the higher the population, the better the accessibility. They also indicate that in the research on accessibility, the role of time is not to be neglected – the research area being an example, where despite the transportation network covering a territory of almost 3 thousand km2, the real possibilities for moving are much lower due to the time of transit.