26 leaders
With over 760,000 citizens, Krakow, the second largest city of Poland, has a dense network of trams and buses and supplies efficient transport services. The tram network is made of 25 lines with a length of 90 km, including the underground rapid tram tunnel. For the development of the public transport system, the authorities have considered the development of a metro network, but they have abandoned the project because of financial problems and have instead adopted a development plan for the rapid tram network. With all these hypotheses, local authorities have launched a referendum which has also included the problem of the metro construction and the outcome will have a significant impact in the decision-making process. The city’s mobility system relies on public transport as 73% of the city’s families declared that they use public transport services (trams and buses) and the market share of municipal transport is 50%, while around 25% of the citizens use personal cars. At present, transport services ensure a traffic of 15 million train-km and 50-55% use the tram of the total number of public transport passengers. www.railwaypro.com | June 2014