Kolejowe przewozy pasażerskie o charakterze użytku publicznego – doświadczenia ostatnich 20 lat transformacji kolei w Polsce
Regional Passenger Railway Transport as a Public Service: Twenty Years of Railway Reforms in Poland

Summary/Abstract: Prolonged diffi culties in implementation of rational organization and financing of public-service passenger railway transport in Poland translate into its continued suboptimal operation. Reforms of the passenger railway system have been under way for almost 20 years. The aim of the paper is to propose economically efficient solutions based on analysing actual transitions which took place during the last decade in railway and other sectors of public transport. Short-distance regional passenger services are permanently unprofitable, but they serve well the public purpose providing the society with economic benefits. Despite examples of good practices both in Poland and other European countries facing similar problems, implemented solutions usually consolidate the monopoly in delivery of public services, eliminate competition and prevent the adoption of the best solution for the society, and shift the costs of these faulty solutions to voivodeships. The organization of regional passenger services is vastly infl uenced by the entry barrier of lacking access to the necessary rolling stock. A solution to this problem would be to extend the time span covered by contracts for realizing such services, and to make state-owned PKP Cargo and PKP Intercity’s surplus rolling stock available to other bidders. Finally, the rolling stock belonging to the voivodeships railway company should be passed to its shareholders, i.e. local governments.

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