Jón Þorvaldur Heiðarsson (p)

Vinko Mustra

North Iceland is sparsely populated but relatively big region in Europe terms. A small city, Akureyri with population of 20k, is in the middle of the region and is the economic and service center. The road system in the region has been improving as elsewhere in Iceland but never the less includes difficult mountain roads, old bridges and one lane tunnels which do not meet the demands of modern society. Also it is possible to shortening the distances considerably between towns in the region and in that way draw the inhabitants closer together. In the lecture a future picture will be put forward of improved road system in the region which would strengthen the region, improve access to service, stimulate tourism, burst other economic activity and in general increase quality of live. Road constructions are expensive and therefore it is normal to ask about the economic basis for extensive road project in the region. Who should pay? In the lecture the possibilities in financing the whole thing will be discussed. Especially whether there is basis for letting the users pay for the project, that is, using road toll. In that respect the toll must be in accordance with the benefit for the traffic using the road. The willingness to pay is various. It turns out that some parts of the future project are very profitable while others must be financed in other way.

Tomasz Komornicki (p)

Jón Þorvaldur Heiðarsson

On 24 February 2022, Russian troops invaded Ukrainian territory. In addition to the enormous geopolitical and macroeconomic consequences, this also has implications at the regional and local level. The war conditions have changed the pattern of linkages and flows, formed in recent decades, not only in Ukraine, but also in neighbouring countries and across Europe. Mass migratory movements, under conditions of airspace closure, have created a new demand for land passenger transport. At the same time, trade and political relations have been greatly transformed by sanctions against Russia. These changes are confirmed by the results of the first studies on the directions of refugee flows.
The paper will present new considerations for the development of European-scale transport links resulting from the pattern of flows described in the ESPON IRiE project (Interregional Relations in Europe; Rauhut at al. 2022). These will include modelling the spread of Ukrainian refugees in Europe, as well as the effects of trade restrictions on regional economies (input-output). More detailed analyses will illustrate the situation in Poland. They will be based on the results of Polish National Science Centre (NCN) projects: Eucentra and Flows-PL. The territorial distribution of Ukrainian refugees will be presented, as well as the local structure of foreign trade (including Russia's share of trade). A separate assessment will be made of data on the traffic of persons and vehicles on Poland's eastern border in 2022 (according to the latest data from the Polish Border Guard on a weekly basis), broken down by the nationality of the persons crossing.
The results illustrating the pattern of relations and flows and border traffic will be compared to existing and planned transport infrastructure and to changes in spatial accessibility in Europe and Poland. Selected European investments (e.g. the newly proposed corridor of the TEN-T network, the so-called Via Carpatia; Rosik et al. 2018) will be assessed in terms of the generated changes in potential transport accessibility. On this basis, a critical assessment of current transport investment plans will be made.

Bibliography:
1. Rosik P. at al., 2018, Improvement of accessibiliy in Eastern Europe due to implementation of road projects in the Via Carpatia corridor, Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft 160, p. 177-196
2. Rauhut D. at al., 2022, Policy Brief: The Russian invasion of Ukraine, analysing the refugees flows and possible implications for Cohesion Policy. IRiE – Interregional Relations in Europe Annex 24C. Final report, ESPON, Luxembourg, 24p.

József Pál Lieszkovszky (p)

Tomasz Komornicki

The presentation will examine the public transport links in border regions of Hungary. From the point of view of public transport, it is unfavourable that there are quite few regional connections and, despite efforts, their number is decreasing rather than increasing. Most of the cross-border railway lines and branch lines have been closed or no longer used by passengers.

It can be said that one of the highest densities of rail connections can be found at the Austrian-Hungarian border, and even the Romanian side, where all the operating rail border crossings are used by passenger traffic. On the other border sections, including the Serbian-Hungarian one, the number of daily connections is minimal. Regular cross-border bus services, which are also important in the local cross-border movement, are much less frequent and more occasional than rail passenger services.

The INPUTRANS project ("Improvement on the public transport services in the CBC region through the integration of public transport modes, development of railway infrastructure, and harmonization of transport") is implemented under the Interreg HU-SRB Programme, between 1 January 2021 and 30 June 2023. The project partnership consists of two partners from Hungary (Kiskunhalas Municipality and KTI) and three partners from Serbia (Subotica Municipality, Vojvodina Provincial Secretariat for Economy and Tourism and Alma Mons, Regional Agency for Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Novi Sad). The project partnership is managed by Kiskunhalas Municipality as Lead Beneficiary.

The project is inspired by the fact that the public transport accessibility and availability is very poor in the INPUTRANS project area (Serbian-Hungarian border region). There are only 2 train pairs per day (between Subotica and Kelebia) and the bus connections are also limited to a few pairs per day. As a result, individual transport options (private car or carpooling) are becoming increasingly popular, and the public transport cuts caused by the COVID pandemic have further boosted towards the individual and carpooling modes.

Vinko Mustra (p), Blanka Šimundić, Josip Grgić

József Pál Lieszkovszky

Great volatility and uncertainty during recent decades has been characterized by highly heterogeneous territorial impacts and the promotion of the concept of resilience for understanding the factors behind these fluctuations. Most studies in this area have been driven by the dominant narrative of urban economics, with a focus on large and dynamic metropolitan areas.
Very little research has paid attention to the role of transportation accessibility in building a resilient regional economy. This has been especially the case for spatial units heavily defined by transport accessibility: islands. Under the discontinuous space context, absence of economies of scale, micro-climates, and the spatial reach of networks, accessibility plays a critical role for and in island life.
In this paper, we try to fill this gap by exploring the relationship between regional resilience and the degree of transportation accessibility for islands. By focusing on the resistance and recovery phase of resilience among islands in Croatia in the period 2007-2021, we provide a deep foundation for a discussion on development and policy.
Our empirical findings indicate higher levels of resilience for less isolated islands, especially as a result of faster recovery after economic downturns. However, the degree of transportation accessibility does not play an important role for resistance among our spatial units.
Finally, the study provides clear insights for policy makers in delivering more effective development policy measures during turbulent periods for islands as unique spatial units.