30 years of the transformation of non-urban public transport in Poland's peripheral areas - what went wrong?

Transport-based social exclusion is currently a serious social problem in Poland, and one which is apparently most severe at the level of the county (Polish ) in the south-east of the country, including the Beskid Niski and Bieszczady Mountains. A deeper illustration of this problem requires both observation of changes in the suburban public-transport network and the identification of areas in which this has deteriorated significantly in quantity and quality. The chosen starting point for the research was therefore 1990, as a year in which - on the one hand - the Polish economy was already shifted to the new free-market principles; while - on the other - state PKS (Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacji Samochodowej) non-urban bus transport enterprises still dominated public transport.