Analysis of the public transport provision in Suceava-Botoşani urban area (Romania)

Abstract

Having a major economic and social role, public transport is an important component in the process of sustainable development of a city. The paper aimed to study the public transport at metropolitan and regional scale evidencing how two major urban centers of Romania, Suceava and Botoșani, connect via public transport with the rural settlements in their metropolitan areas. The metropolitan supply of public transport was analysed starting with publicly available data on the routes in 2014 for both Botoșani County and Suceava County, located in the North-Eastern side of Romania. The routes' spatial disposition and daily frequency is analysed for road and rail public transport. The resulted mappings showed that road public transport is well distributed in the metropolitan territory for both urban centres, but there is still almost 4% of the rural population that does not have direct access to this public utility service. The rail public transport covers only a small amount of the studied area and it has a secondary role in supplying public transport services for the population because of the lack of investments that the entire rail sector suffered in Romania. The share of private cars has increased significantly, but the population's need for mobility is not completely covered and this paper offers some recommendations for the improvement of the public transportation supply in Suceava-Botoșani Urban Area.