Elimination of modal collision: railway bridge over the Regalica River

This study aims to identify and quantify the economic benefits of eliminating collisions between two transport systems: rail and inland waterway transport. The collision between transport systems is caused here by the obsolete structure of a railway drawbridge, which constitutes an element of the railway line used by freight and passenger transport and is located on the main inland waterway used by inland waterways freight transport. Railway transport results in limitations of inland waterway transport and, vice versa, inland waterways transport blocks railway transport during lifting of the bridge span. In the case of railway transport, the low capacity of the single-track railway bridge constitutes an additional limitation of the development of transportation. There are plans to eliminate the collision in the regional transport system by constructing a new railway bridge in place of the old drawbridge. The effects of the transportation infrastructure improvement were measured directly for both rail and inland water freight systems as well as the result of the interaction between passenger rail and car and bus transport. In order to compare the different types of impact, the effects of different actions were valued in monetary terms. The planned intervention, as investigated here, will lead to reductions in the cost of time of inland waterways freight transport and costs of time of rail passenger and freight transport and a decrease in the external costs of transport. This will make possible transportation services that are both cheaper and more reliable.