Opportunities and potential of transportation on the Danube

Abstract

The fundamental trends of transportation of goods are negative concerning the two important mass transport technologies, the rail and inland navigation in the EU. This phenomenon is problematic even from the view of competitiveness and ecology if we just consider the facts that these modes of transport are cheaper than road transport and cause less pollution or other negative externalities. For the improvement of this unfavorable position, these two technologies need a drastic change in the level of service and business models, particularly in the used infrastructure. One of the most fundamental issues within transportation is the question of navigation on the Danube, where Hungary is also a stakeholder. In this paper I try to find the most important factors of this issue and try to identify the fundamental principles of a new Danube shipping strategy in Central-Europe. This analysis is first of all based on the statistical data on transportation networks. Keywords: transport, rail, inland waterways, Danube, inland navigation