Towards Sustainable Development and Preventing Exclusions—Determining Road Accessibility at the Sub-Regional and Local Level in Rural Areas of Poland

Abstract

The improvement in a regions’ accessibility that accounts for various means of inter-regional transport and inter-regional communication is one of the main determinants of sustainable regional development. This study focuses on road accessibility in rural areas where an insufficient number and scope of international and domestic investments can lead to an imbalance in the transport infrastructure. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate road accessibility at the level of the NUTS4 units in view of their sustainable development and their divergence from rural units that are less distant from the main transport routes. The studied area—a province—is situated in the northeast of Poland. Data concerning the travel time, condition, and density of the road network were analysed to develop and compare the measures of road accessibility in individual units and to perform an overall assessment of the NUTS4 units. Partial indices were calculated with the support of the QGIS and ArcGIS software. Peripheral regions in post-socialist countries appear to be particularly underinvested in terms of the transport, including at the local and regional level. The applied methodology supported the presentation of problem peripheral areas that are underinvested and threatened with exclusion.