Managing a city that is simultaneously a place of employment, residence, leisure, shopping, and cultural engagement must have not only an economic dimension but also a social and ecological one.
Urban logistics is increasingly perceived as a tool for solving many problems of urban agglomerations. The essence of urban logistics boils down to managing the flows of all resources within a city, between its subsystems, such as transport, production, trade, organization, and others.
Urban logistics proposes replacing the existing, uncoordinated system of transport flows with a customer-oriented, coordinated local logistics system that is particularly sensitive to the needs of the urban agglomeration.
In the urban logistics model, a solution is preferred where public administration acts as the main shareholder and offers its own resources. Another variant involves combining underutilized resources of economic entities operating within the city (including local carriers) and making them fully available for the needs of the given area.
The transport system of an urban agglomeration constitutes a very important subsystem of urban logistics. A significant and fundamental element of urban transport is the public transport subsystem. It is defined as a set of mutually coupled and organized activities aimed at ensuring passenger traffic service within the agglomeration. Therefore, the goal is to maximize the logistical level of customer service at given global costs or to minimize costs at a specified level of service.
The Gdańsk agglomeration is a polycentric agglomeration comprising 8 cities: Gdańsk, Gdynia, Sopot, Pruszcz Gdański, Reda, Rumia, Tczew, and Wejherowo. The centers of the agglomeration are: Gdańsk (458,000 inhabitants) and Gdynia (253,000 inhabitants). In total, its area is inhabited by 880,000 people.
For years, efforts have been made to integrate passenger transport in the Gdańsk agglomeration. Both residents and city authorities want this. In the 1990s, more or less institutionalized actions aimed at integration were undertaken. Unfortunately, success was not achieved.
Functioning of urban transport in the Gdańsk agglomeration until 1990
Public transport functioned as an internally integrated system almost until the end of the 1980s, because its organization was handled by the Voivodeship Transport Enterprise (WPK) in Gdańsk, responsible for this type of transport throughout the entire area of the then-Gdańsk Voivodeship.
The integrated passenger transport system in the Gdańsk agglomeration was characterized by a common tariff and transport offer. Outside the integrated system, which included bus, tram, and trolleybus transport, remained the Rapid Urban Railway (SKM), which functioned within the organizational structure of the Polish State Railways, connecting the individual cities of the agglomeration axially.
In 1989, as a result of the division of WPK in Gdańsk into 4 independent enterprises, public transport in the Gdańsk agglomeration ceased to offer a fully integrated transport service. The transfer of public transport to local governments in 1990 as their own task deepened its disintegration on an agglomeration scale. Local governments began to shape its functioning in their own specific way.
An attempt to integrate public transport in the Gdańsk agglomeration by creating a municipal association
Local government authorities in the Gdańsk agglomeration already noticed the problem of passenger transport disintegration in its area in the early 1990s. In 1991, an attempt was made to establish a municipal association of Gdańsk, Gdynia, and Sopot and to create an organizer of public transport at its level, whose task would be to ensure an integrated transport offer in the areas of these municipalities. The emergence of a political and social barrier prevented the full implementation of this solution.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 2002/6.