Discussion Papers 1992. No. 13. 
Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary
CENTRE FOR REGIONAL STUDIES 
OF HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
DISCUSSION PAPERS 
No. 13 
Transportation Effects on Spatial 
Structure of Hungary 
by 
ERDOSI, Ferenc 
Series editor 
HRUBI, Laszlo 
Pecs 
1992 

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Discussion Papers 1992. No. 13. 
Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary
The Discussion Papers series is sponsored by 
BAT Pecsi Dohanygyar Kft. 
a Member of the British-American Tobacco Company Group 
The research and publishing of this paper are sponsored by 
National Research Fund 
(OTKA) 
ISSN 0238-2008 
© 1992 by Centre for Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences 
Technical editor: Hrubi, Laszlo 
Typeset by Centre for Regional Studies, HAS 
Printed in Hungary by G—Nyomdasz Ltd., Pecs 

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Discussion Papers 1992. No. 13. 
Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary
CONTENTS 
Introduction (5) 
Monocentric spatial structure brought about by transport as a historical heri-
tage (5) 
Regional characteristics of passenger traffic on the basis of inter-settlement 
traffic connections (13) 
1 • Long-distance (inter-regional, inter-provincial, intercity) public transport 
links (14) 
a) Communications between the capital and the provincial towns (16) 
b) Communications between the provincial regions and cities (18) 
2. Public transport links in the gravity zones (21) 
a) The relationship of smaller towns with their county seats (22) 
b) Accessibility of the central settlements from their zones (22) 
3. The sphere of functions of the towns as traffic junctions (28) 
The impact of traffic on the regional and settlement development (36) 
1. The strong impact of the railways (37) 
2. The weak influence of vehicular traffic (42) 
References (45) 
Figures (48) 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
INTRODUCTION 
On account of its geographical situation Hungary, as a meeting-point of 
transcontinental transport, has a significant transit function and it is the 
place where the communication channels linking Western and Eastern 
Europe as well as Northern and Southern Europe converge. To make use 
of a technical term: Hungary is a „ferry-country". Also because of the 
above mentioned endowment in comparison with the socio-economic 
development level of the country a high-standard railway-network has 
been built which proved to be an unusually strong spatial structure-
shaping factor. In this paper I am going to give a brief survey of the cha-
racteristic features of the interaction between the transport network and 
the general regional structure. 
MONOCENTRIC SPATIAL STRUCTURE BROUGHT ABOUT 
BY TRANSPORT AS A HISTORICAL HERITAGE 
Hungary is one of the European countries having the most concentrated 
settlement structure. Its capital is a metropolis with 2 million inhabitants. 
From among its other cities the biggest ones  (Debrecen, Miskolc)  are 
only one-tenth of the size of Budapest, therefore they are unsuitable for 
fulfilling the role of „counterpoles" as designed originally by the re-
gional planners. In addition to this, the capital has a much greater weight 
in the economy, trade, foreign tourism, education and culture than it 
might be suggested by the 1:5 proportion of the number of inhabitants 
(its share in the industry has declined from the 54% of 1938 to 25% by 
now as a result of the decentralisation efforts). The innovation activities 
have been concentrated here in every period and nearly completely. In 
the non-industrial sectors decentralisation has been next to nothing. In 
the information society taking shape nowadays the provinces once again 
will not stand the chance to catch up with the national centre often re-
ferred to a bit rudely as  hydrocephalous. 
The unheard of magnitude of settlement and economic-intellectual 
concentration, the unhealthy capital-centredness have come into being as 
a result of several factors. From the geographical aspect, an argument 
may be that the configurations of the terrain and the natural endowments, 
the basin-character (the centripetal force lines of the economy and the 
5 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
settlements have „predisposed" the  Carpathian basin which has an area 
of over 300,000 square kilometres to have a centre somewhere in the 
middle) has promoted this concentration as much as the historical en-
dowment as a result of which the economico-social forces of the back-
ward country existing within the framework of a semi-feudal rural soci-
ety were not sufficient for the formation of further cities. In the final ac-
count, however, it is the establishment of definitely radially structured 
trunk lines and arterial roads. (In France the railways starting from Paris 
are linked by transversals built in the peripheries, therefore the railway 
network is radial-arched, while in Hungary it is only radial because of 
the lack of transversals.) This network form, however, is neither a „natu-
ral endowment" nor  deus ex machina  but rather the result of a deliberate 
action motivated by political considerations. 
Having lost its independent statehood, Hungary was part of the 
Austrian Empire  until 1867. In the middle of the 19th century, accord-
ingly, the first railway network plans served the interests of the Austrian 
Empire. The railways were planned in the direction of  Vienna  and  Triest, 
the only Austrian port, detouring  Pest-Buda  (which was not more dense-
ly populated than  Debrecen city  in those days) in the interest of exporting 
the Hungarian agricultural products. 
Out of these plans, however, only a few tracks were realised and 
most of the network (in the  Alfold  which is the Hungarian name of the 
Great Hungarian Plain) had become completely Budapest-centred al-
ready prior to 1867. With the  Compromise  having been concluded with 
Austria in 1867 and the relative independence of Hungary the economi-
co-political conditions for the assertion of the Hungarian national inter-
ests were created. For a while, however, the orientation and structure of 
the network that would serve the best interests of Hungary were not 
clear. In the Great Hungarian Plain, which played a decisive role in agri-
cultural exports, such railways would have served most directly the in-
terests of the landowners of the Great Hungarian Plain (in the southern 
part) which would have established the shortest haulage facilities in the 
direction of the countries beyond Austria or partly of the western coun-
tries to be reached by sea. This would have been in the best interest of re-
leasing economic dependence on Austria. The  Nagyvarad  (now  Ora-
dea)—Szeged—Eszek  (now  Osijek)  section of the  Alfold—Fiume  (now Rije-
ka) Railway  and the  Bataszek—Dombovar—Zakany  section of the  Da-
nube—Drava Railway  were built with this purpose in mind. 
These transversal tracks undoubtedly served direct regional inter-
ests, our exports of agricultural produce and through them the increase of 
6 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
our export proceeds represented a national interest in the final account. 
Nevertheless from among the railway development alternatives the alter-
native which ranked first was soon the one which would also have al-
lowed for the transformation of the Hungarian capital into a European 
metropolis being able to compete with and counterbalance Vienna within 
the  Monarchy.  This aspiration was served on the one hand by the con-
struction of new state trunk lines (the  AIPld—Fiume Railway  among oth-
ers) towards  Budapest  capable of competing efficiently with the lines of 
the private companies by means of halting the construction of the trans-
versal railways having been started and diverting the traffic towards the 
capital by means of tariffs. In this action the Budapest lobby of the mill-
ing industry took a prominent part. 
The excessively one-centred development of our railway trunk 
lines continued until the early twentieth century. By that time Budapest 
had advanced to a metropolis „having a really firm footing feet" and the 
dominance of the milling industry came to an end. 
Upon the pressure of the disadvantages of the unhealthy centralisa-
tion and limited traffic throughput of the railway stations of Budapest, 
the government promoted the traffic detouring the capital by means of 
the completion of the formerly started transversals from the first decade 
of our century and by building a new transversal. 
As long as the objects of the assertion and confrontation of the im-
perial and national interests were the trunk lines, the (regional, provin-
cial, local) territorial interests of lower category mainly appeared when 
the branch lines or rather the so-called suburban railway lines were to be 
established. 
It was the counties that represented the provincial interests. The 
main efforts of the county policy in the age of Dualism were directed at 
maintaining the administrative territorial integrity in spite of the changes 
having taken place in the territorial structure of the economy and the 
gravity zones. The unconditional respect for  status quo  was given prior-
ity over realities. The only exception to this was when territorial expan-
sion was possible at the cost of the neighbouring county. Hostile behav-
iour was seen in the planning of any railways which led from the respec-
tive county towards the seat or other centres of the neighbouring county 
and whenever there was a possibility that some part of their county might 
belong to the gravity zone of the central settlements of the neighbouring 
county and get disannexed later on. 
In connection with the under-urbanisation of Hungary in nearly all 
the counties not only was the county seat the largest settlement by far but 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
also because of the weakness of the economic energies, it was not possi-
ble for the other central settlements to grow to a size similar to that of the 
county seat. The dominance of the county seats had an impact to this ef-
fect in the exercising of a monocentric county policy, among others by 
means of the county seat-centred development of the transport network 
as well as by the prevention of the centres with secondary towns from 
obtaining a better transport position. 
In the comparatively moderate complementary railway construc-
tions carried out after 1945 we cannot point out marked regional interests 
but rather sectoral, more specifically heavy industrial ones. (Short by-
lines were built to link mines, large industrial combinates, cement-works 
with the railway network.) At the same time the routing of our motor 
ways having been built from the 1960s exclusively in a monocentric 
structure is not free of the dominance of certain territorial interests either. 
For example, in the designation of the motor way along  Lake Balaton 
mainly the interests of the capital were taken into account by the Buda-
pest Designing Office. The motor way was located in the nearly contigu-
ously built-up linear foreign tourism agglomeration situated along the 
lake or on its outskirts because the carriage of the inhabitants of the 
capital who are disproportionately interested in the „use" of  Balaton  as 
compared to their number can be facilitated and made faster in this way. 
The former disadvantageous regional structure (excessively centred on 
the strip of land around the lake) has been conserved and this may be the 
main adverse effect of the high performance line of communication. The 
actual preservation of the provincial interests of  Sornogy county  and of 
the viability of the settlements in the depression zone — lying a long 
way from the lake-shore — would have been served by a motor way 
situated at least 18-30 kilometres from the shore which not only would 
have relieved the burden from the viewpoint of the traffic and the envi-
ronment but would also have established a new development „passage in 
the hinterland". 
The historically inherited monocentric transport structure of the 
country has not been eliminated up to now. On the other hand, in the past 
decades the necessity of the further development of a transversally di-
rected transport bypassing the capital has been acknowledged on several 
occasions in accordance with the decentralisation efforts of the regional 
policy. In reality, however, from the two bridges with mixed traffic 
crossing the border between Budapest and  Yugoslavia  on the one in 
Dunafoldvar  the railway passenger traffic has been discontinued while 
the increase of its freight traffic faces a technical obstacle: the weakness 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
of the track. Although the bridge in  Baja town is situated more favour-
ably from the aspect of transversal traffic, its railway has only medium 
performance. 
Our biggest foreign trade partners can be found partly in the north-
eastern, partly in the east-western directions, therefore in the foreign 
trade transport of the southern half of the country the shortest route is the 
one via Budapest. This fact in itself is good enough reason to build a 
bridge over the Danube which would not interfere with the internal traf-
fic of the metropolis, somewhere between  Dunaidvdros town and Buda-
pest. The transport of this bridge would be considerably greater than that 
of the bridge planned to be built in the region of Szekszard  town (leading 
the Southern Motorway to the Great Hungarian Plain) because at this 
point the transport may be strongly divided with the neighbouring Baja 
Bridge (Figure 1). 
The balance of the regional relations proves that in the country 
which turned out to be one-centred the demand for goods and passenger 
transport is of much lower intensity between the peripheral areas of the 
country than between Budapest and the provinces. With this argument it 
was easy to put off the advocates backing the development of transversal 
traffic. Yet there is no hope for the functional relations to become deeper 
without an adequate direct traffic link. It would be possible to break this 
circulus vitiosus  only if the transport development policy tried to meet 
the demands for transport. 
Neither the establishment nor even the partial discontinuance of the 
traffic network (under the aegis of the national traffic concept) is free of 
the assertion of various territorial (county, local) and sectoral (traffic, in-
dustrial, agricultural) interests. 
On the basis of our investigations which cannot be detailed here on 
account of space we can give the following reply to the question (raised 
by us concerning the criterion of the economical operation of the railway 
lines) of economicalness from the viewpoint of the government, or as the 
interest of the national economy, public service or business efficiency, is 
that the national economic interest should be the main consideration even 
under the conditions of a regulated market economy (involving regional 
interests as well) being capable of maintaining a social net. 
In the process covering 25 years which led to the discontinuance of 
some 700 railway lines of standard gauge and of approximately the same 
number of narrow gauge lines can be divided into three periods. The first 
period from 1959 to 1968 eliminated the short by-lines having been cut 
off by the state frontier and this was the period when the fewest changes 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
in the network could be registered. The second longer period was marked 
by the „Traffic Policy Conception" of 1968 which clearly formulated the 
necessity of the differentiated development of our railway network. The 
liquidation of the feeder (branch) lines in the internal parts of the country 
was also commenced. From the mid-1970s liquidation slowed down 
gradually and in the early 1980s hardly any further lines were wound up. 
The consequences of the discontinuance of lines, however, have 
some significance beyond the issue of traffic itself, therefore, the second 
block of secondary effects is constituted by the effects having occurred 
in the economic development in the production sphere. 
While in Western Europe the road traffic was able to compensate 
for the railway lines with a high substitution value to such an extent that 
the diversion of traffic to the public highway merely resulted in the re-
duction of the value of the premises without being compelled to close 
down the plants, in Hungary the railway discontinuances made impossi-
ble or uneconomical the transport-intensive industrial production. 
The transport-intensive plants (brickworks, flax-mills) located on a 
large amount of local raw materials and based on local workforce were 
closed down, thus the utilisation of local raw materials delivered with 
difficulty had to be abandoned in the end. 
Certain sylvicultural and agricultural bulk raw materials tied to one 
place, such as wood and fruits are so much valuable and in demand that 
now they reach the remote processing industry by means of the more ex-
pensive road haulage. 
The operation of some plants processing also local raw materials 
was not discontinued after the closure of the railways because they ma-
nufacture products not to be substituted (brickworks and mills producing 
special products). 
The plants having obtained a position at the end of the by-lines as a 
consequence of the discontinuances of lines (in  Zalaszentgrot, Nagyatad 
towns) can carry out their traditional railway conveyances in a round-
about way. 
Between Nagyatad and Bares town, two intermediate-grade centres 
of Somogy county,  the chances of economic or other kinds of co-opera-
tion became less favourable. In the maintenance of the relations of both 
towns with the gravity zone and other regions considerable difficulties 
arose as a result of the railway transport having become one-sided. 
The railway caused undesirable changes in the agriculture and the 
supply with agricultural products. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
In some places the structure of the agricultural production was 
modified because the intensive agrarian cultures producing masses of 
haulage-intensive produce (e.g. sugar beet, flax, potatoes) were termi-
nated or reduced. 
The diversion of the railway transport onto the public road, the rise 
in the prices of haulage deteriorated the supplies of vegetables, fruits and 
dairy products offered by the small producers on the markets of the af-
fected towns and it also contributed to the unusually rapid increases in 
the market prices. The inhabitants and holiday-making buyers of  Kapos-
var, Pecs, Baja, Sarvar, Bares towns and of the western shore of  Lake 
Balaton were affected the most adversely. 
In consideration of the long-term perspectives the large-scale agri-
cultural plants invested a lot of money in the formation of the railway 
platforms. Nevertheless, they were not compensated for the loss of the 
facilities. At the same time the cost of the industrial products used in ag-
riculture (chemicals, soil-improving material) became more expensive. 
The lack of railways generated did not leave foreign tourism and 
rural tourism, that is the spread of „second homes" unaffected either. The 
railway connection of the spas —  Harkany, Scirvar  and  Bakfiird5, fa-
mous  all over Central Europe — have lost one direction each. The dis-
continuance of the suburban line between  Pecs–Harkany reduced tempo-
rarily the popularity of Harkany,  a health-resort of national significance, 
and the gravity zone of  Csokonyavisonta,  a watering-place which was 
also left without a railway line, was reduced, too. Elsewhere, since it is 
possible to travel to the zone of weekend cottages only by the more ex-
pensive buses, a lot of people sold their plots and weekend cottages. In 
spite of its shortness the significance of the  Veszpretn– Alsoors  railway 
line was given by the long-distance transit passenger traffic both in the 
summer bathing season and in autumn (at vintage time), being used by 
the inhabitants possessing properties on the northern shore of Balaton as 
well as by the vacationers of the zone around  GyOr  city. Its discontinu-
ance deprived the inhabitants of North Transdanubia of the cheapest and 
most comfortable means of reaching  Lake Balaton. 
In addition to the direct economic consequences of the lack of 
railways reduced the value of the settlements as places of habitation, hin-
dering qualified labour form settling down there. Its consequence is typi-
cally revealed mostly in the postponement of the development of popu-
lation infrastructure, and within this, in the moderately higher prices of 
housing construction. The demographic-social effects are closely related 
to the issues above, thus to the reduction in the value of settlements as 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
places of habitation, too. The discontinuances of railway tracks have af-
flicted most seriously the strata living under the most unfavourable cir-
cumstances, namely the people in the lower income brackets, the elderly, 
the women and members in the families of the manual workers without 
private cars. 
Making decisions relating to the discontinuance of railway tracks 
even the main aspects of regional planning were ignored. Looking at 
Figure 2 we can see that it took place on a larger scale precisely in the 
peripheries, in the disadvantaged regions (mostly with low productivity) 
or flat territories covered with sand or pebbles in  Zselic, Southern So-
mogy, Vas  and  Zala counties  etc. being a step which caused impoverish-
ment for both the inhabitants and the farms. Particularly striking is the 
situation of Southern Somogy. Signs of insensitiveness on the side of the 
Hungarian State Railways  (MA V)  to the local and regional county inter-
ests are shown by the fact that three branch-lines of meridional direction 
linking the  DombOvar—Gyekenyes  and  Pecs—Bares  main lines were dis-
continued, the railway, as it were „withdrew" from the provinces. From 
the aspect of regional planning it was a serious mistake to afflict this re-
gion in a concentrated way, and deprive a region of the railway where 
the profitability of agriculture is very low and the economy- and popula-
tion-stabilising means should have included, among other, the improve-
ment of the traffic. 
With the rerouting of traffic onto the public road the costs of trans-
portation multiplied and instead of offering the .promised „civilised" pas-
senger traffic, the superannuated population had to make do with the 
much more expensive buses of lower comfort level which ran unreliably. 
Since the regional system of recent bus services, the direction, 
length of their lines deviate from those of the former railways at several 
points, the accessibility conditions of the central settlements have been 
modified to the most diverse extent and according to different signs in 
the individual areas the limits between the gravity zones, the territorial 
proportions of the intensity zones within the gravity zones were also 
changed (e.g. within Zala and Bekes counties). 
The tertiary effects of the discontinuances influencing the whole 
national economy are revealed in the prevention of decentralisation, the 
undesirable territorial differentiation of the economic-demographic po-
tential, the emptying of certain areas and the strengthening of the cumu-
lative agglomerative tendencies. Both tendencies cause the increase of 
the social costs. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
In the last analysis the selective development of the Hungarian 
railway network (reconstruction and electrification of the trunk lines, and 
at the same time the discontinuance of a part of the branch-lines) con-
tributed to territorial concentration, strengthening the position of the high 
performance development axes and promoting the increase of the terri-
torial disproportionateness. 
REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PASSENGER TRAFFIC 
ON THE BASIS OF INTER-SETTLEMENT TRAFFIC 
CONNECTIONS 
Below is given a survey (restricted solely to traffic for public use) of the 
regional peculiarities, structure of the long-distance and gravity zone 
passenger traffic. 
According to direction, service and distance in the structure of lo-
cal traffic needs characteristic tendencies have been dominant in recent 
years. Above all, the change in the motivation of the social demand for 
several long-distance journeys deserves our attention. Before the socialist 
industrialisation within the total output of travels — we shall disregard 
now the neighbourhood of the then existing Budapest agglomeration and 
some industrialised cities or mining towns — short-distance commuting 
directed at certain centres of employment was negligible, yet regular 
travelling for other purposes was not intense either. In fact migration and 
then moving back periodically in connection with seasonal employment 
across the county limits was more characteristic. The people employed in 
the broken up retail and peddling trade together with the populous group 
of craftsmen and civil servants constituted an important part of the crowd 
inducing long-distance traffic, only a fraction of whom can be classified 
as passengers travelling for private purpose. 
From the 1950s not only short-distance commuting to work and 
educational establishments involved large masses but the number of 
those travelling short-distance for business purpose (within the districts 
and the county) also increased. 
As a result of the extensive industrialisation practically restricted to 
Budapest and a few heavy industrial provincial centres, the great major-
ity of the considerably increased profession (or job)-related traffic mul-
tiplied the demand for long-distance traffic — at the weekends as a rule 
— by means of the periodically commuting passengers. The strong cen- 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
tralisation of administration also contributed to it as a consequence of the 
inflated official and administrative machinery, traffic related to office 
and administrative work restricted merely to working days became more 
frequent. General experience shows that private cars are more and more 
frequently used as means of short- or medium-distance traffic for busi-
ness purpose. In this respect passenger traffic providing lOng-distance 
services — continuing to meet the important needs for travelling for of-
ficial purposes (mainly directed towards the capital) — should be di-
rected more and more towards travels related to private life and foreign 
tourism. The means of traffic may differ according to routes. From the 
two routes related to the capital the macrostructure of our passenger traf-
fic is characterised by the predominance of the railway lines which are 
traditionally of monocentric direction in reaching the capital, while in the 
transversal direction by that of the long-distance bus routes designed in 
principle to substitute the railway lines. The possibilities of the two 
constituents of the main network are not, however, by far equivalent in 
the creation of the actual connections. Despite the original intention the 
long-distance bus services became a suitable means of long-distance 
journeys only to some extent because of their slowness while this was 
not the case with the short- or medium-distance „chain traffic" involving 
a strong change of passengers. Thus the service provided by them but 
rarely ever used all along the route is more of a potential than functional 
value because of its contradictoriness. In the gravity zone relations, how-
ever, the performance of buses outrivals that of the railways. 
1. Long-distance (inter-regional, inter-provincial, intercity) public 
transport links 
The means of long-distance railway passenger traffic have been the fast 
and express trains for a long time as well as the so-called „bathing trains" 
which stop only in a few places and are provided mainly as a form of 
tourist service. 
As opposed to the 20 main lines carrying also fast and mainly ex-
press trains starting from Budapest and branching out at the junctions 
which are distant in relation to the capital back in the 1950s there hardly 
existed one or two trunk lines of transversal direction, or fast train serv-
ices in the southern half of the country  (Figure 3).  From the 1970s sev-
eral new transversals were built in the northern half of the country, some 
of which, however, may be evaluated only as quasi-transversal because 
they link the large regions only via Budapest. The large regions separated 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
by the  River Danube  are linked by the  Pecs—Szeged  fast train running all 
the year round (and in summer by the fast train between  Szeged—Fonyod) 
along a real transversal detouring Budapest. Between the large regions of 
the country lying east of the Danube, between the Great Hungarian Plain 
and the Northern Range of Mountains only the fast train running on the 
Miskolc—Nyiregyhaza—Szolnok—Szeged 
route and the one running on the 
last three days of the week on the  SalgOtarjan—Jaszbereny—Szolnok—Deb-
recen line and the fast train started every day in the better part of the year 
on the Szolnok—Jciszbereny—Eger  line create a connection. The latter were 
favourable to the commutation of workers employed in the industrial re-
gion of Nograd county  and to reaching  Eger town, a centre of tourism. 
The interregional connections between the large regions also greatly im-
proved the possibilities of long-distance transport, cutting short the trips 
which formerly could be undertaken only at the cost of changing trains. 
The majority of (intra-regional) lines within one region connecting sev-
eral county seats as well as settlements being exposed to tourism are the 
result of the past decade. 
A large contiguous region not touched by the railway lines of cen-
tral and transversal directions carrying the long-distance traffic can be 
found embraced by the  Budapest—Hatvan—Miskolc 
and the  Buda-
pest—Szolnok—Debrecen—Nyiregyluiza—Miskolc 
trunk lines bordered on 
the west by the  Szolnok—Hatvan  rail track in the northern part of the 
Great Hungarian Plain. The second largest remaining territory is made up 
of a triangle flanked by the  Szolnok—Debrecen  and the  Szolnok—Bekes-
csaba—Gyula  railway lines and by the  Hungary—Rumania  frontier section 
in the southern territory lying east of River Tisza. 
The destinations of the long-distance buses starting from Budapest 
(Figure 4)  are county seats only partly (15 county seats, altogether 17 
regular lines). Nearly the same number of lines have destinations which 
are not county seats (13 other towns, altogether 18 regular lines) and 
even more, settlements which merely have the legal status of rural com-
munity (15 rural communities, altogether 17 regular lines). Only a few of 
the towns which are not county seats  (Balatonfiired, Keszthely, Siofok) 
and a considerable part of the rural communities have the function of 
tourist bathing resorts or mountain holiday resorts. The bus lines starting 
out from the capital are not exclusively directed to the towns situated on 
the peripheries and accessible only with difficulty, since there are also 
towns among them lying by the trunk line, such as  Komcirom, Pcipa  etc. 
We will speak more specifically about the transversal bus lines 
which are of greater importance than the central ones from the viewpoint 
15 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
of the long-distance regional connections later on, when dealing with the 
connections between the county seats. Taking into account both the cen-
tral and transversal lines it is remarkable that in the east-northern part of 
the country (from the  Josvaid–Miskolc–Polgar–Nyiregyhaza–Debre-
cen–Gyula line  to the east) there is a complete lack of long-distance bus 
lines which can hardly be justified by the substituting performance of the 
railways there. (The lack of bus services towards the capital at the middle 
reaches of River Tisza  is presumably the consequence of the competition 
created by the fast trains which can run on the plain much faster.) 
It is still an open question how much the long-distance railway and 
bus traffic are co-ordinated spatially with each other. In a speculative ap-
proach the two transport carriers have to be able to substitute and com-
plement each other as much as possible in order to meet the demand for 
traffic. Yet the public road transport should be adjusted to the formerly 
established railway system. If — as is often the case — the railway trunk 
line and the arterial road carrying the bus traffic run in one direction, 
next to each other, connecting the same important settlements, the 
chances of both temporary substitution and of easing the burden are pos-
sible. This doubling of the track, which improves safety and continuity, 
however, is not required (e.g. between Budapest and Szolnok) therefore 
it has not been not realised in all the main directions of the country in the 
passenger flow. 
a) Communications between the capital and the provincial towns 
Our most important railway trunk lines leading to the capital were con-
structed as early as the mid-1870s. These lines connected the majority of 
the urban settlements. The main lines built later connected a strikingly 
low number of towns and the development of the regions, settlements 
lying nearby proved to be weaker as well, not being able to overcome the 
disadvantage they had in comparison with the formerly built trunk lines 
because of the delay. The only exception to this is the  (Budapest) Kelen-
fold–Komarom  main line with the coal-basin of  Tatabanya town which 
was explored relatively late and the industries allocated on the coal-base. 
The long-distance bus service launched between the two world wars 
provided an alternative for reaching the capital on several routes but it 
was not able to compete with the railways yet. 
After 1945 up to the 1960s the accessibility of the capital from the 
provincial towns did not change significantly. On the other hand, from 
the second half of the 1960s the possibilities provided by the existing 
16 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
tracks and some branch-lines which had been reconstructed into main 
lines were made use of by starting fast through trains to the capital from 
Zalaegerszeg, Mako, Eger, Gyongyos, Mciteszalka, Nyirbcitor, Ozd  and 
Kazincbarcika. 
The possibility of travelling between the capital and the provinces 
without having to change trains was also improved by the long-distance 
bus lines established in the 1950s  (Figure 5). 
With regard to the routes between the capital and the provincial 
towns and from the aspect of national public administration and tourism 
the accessibility of the county seats from Budapest is of the greatest sig-
nificance. In comparison with the other routes these tracks meet the re-
quirements to the greatest possible extent. All the 18 county seats are 
connected with the capital by the (predominantly first class) main rail-
way line which ensures the running of fast, and even express trains (with 
the exception of Szekszard, Eger  and  Salgotarjan towns) and also by a 
trunk-road (with the exception of five county seats:  Szombathely, Bekes-
csaba, Zalaegerszeg, Kaposvar and  Eger).  At the same time, the section 
of the trunk-road connecting the other towns with the capital is much 
longer than the road of second rank touching them. Only  Miskolc, Nyir-
egyhoza  and  Debrecen  are not connected with Budapest by a direct bus 
line. (It is true, however, that the capital is connected with these remote 
areas by railway trunk lines of the highest performance, in the case of 
Miskolc there is no great distance involved.) The closeness of the con-
nection between Budapest and the county seats (provincial towns in gen-
eral) is determined essentially by three factors: 
— their distance from Budapest, 
—their position as a junction of trunk lines and the volume of tran-
sit traffic flowing across them, 
—the size, socio-economic weight of the respective towns. 
On the understanding of this principle  Szekesfehervar  town has the 
closest and Zalaegerszeg town the loosest connection with the capital. 
On going beyond the category of the county seats and examining 
all the towns already worse proportions can be seen: out of 143 towns 31 
(21.7%) have no direct connections with the capital either by railway or 
by bus services, a somewhat more than half of these (16) are situated in 
the Great Hungarian Plain, somewhat less than a half of these (14) are in 
Transdanubia and only a single town in the northern mountainous region. 
17 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
b)  Communications between the provincial regions and cities 
Up to now it hai not been possible to make the communications of the 
Hungarian regions with each other independent of the natural endow-
ments. There are not enough bridges over our rivers. It is typical that 
while on the Yugoslavian section of the Danube river a dozen of bridges 
have been built since 1945, in Hungary not a single one. Disregarding 
the potential connections made possible by the use of several tracks and 
roundabout means (mostly via Budapest), nine of the regional centres are 
connected with others by main traffic roads. Only  Miskolc  city is in the 
exceptional position of having a direct railway connection with all the 
other regional centres. Even fewer connections were realised by means 
of direct bus services. Basically only in the eastern part of the country 
was established a chain of bus services between the regional centres 
(Figure 6). 
In offsetting the role of Budapest, the junctions of the transversal 
links established with the purpose of forming a ring which connects the 
large cities, the county seats played a decisive role, but mostly in the bus 
service and less by means of the rail transport. 
The traffic relations are essentially characterised by the fact how 
many of their counterparts the individual county seats have a through 
connection with. Only Budapest, which also has the function of a county 
seat, is characterised by a comprehensive mutual connection. The num-
ber of the connections of the other county seats is between 4-13, i.e. 
22.2-72.2% out of the possible 17. The number of the connections shows 
only a very loose correlation with the population number of the towns of 
county status. Although the average value (10.8) of our regional centres 
is over the weighted average value (8.56) of the 18 provincial county seats, 
only two of them take the lead.  Debrecen,  for example, does not reach even 
the average value.  Miskolc  city has the highest number of connections, main-
ly of railway lines.  Szeged  city, however, owes the great number of con-
nections with the other county seats to its motor coach services above all. 
On the other hand, the favourable geographical and traffic position 
occupied in the network of the trunk lines (namely the regional function-
ing of the county seats as busy junctions, or their relative closeness to 
Budapest, the national monocentre of traffic, the situation relating to the 
central part of the country) is not positively asserted in the number of the 
connections in each case. Although in accordance with the gravity model 
the basic determining factor is the distance from each other, its impact is 
rather different even in the case of the roughly similar kilometre-catego- 
18 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
ries. Relative closeness (a distance within 100 km) can be positively as-
serted if the investigated towns are connected by trunk lines (mainly by 
the ones leading to Budapest). If, however, only lower-grade roads are 
available in spite of the relative closeness of air kilometres, and if in 
addition there is a lack of rail connection, or there is a river separating 
the two counties from each other, there the relationship may be weak as 
well. 
Therefore, in spite of the laudable results achieved in the develop-
ment of the transversal public road transport, even today practically the 
monocentric-radial network forms the structure determining at the same 
time the direction of the inter-provincial connections also by means of 
the main traffic passages that it forms. 
In the intercity relationships of a Hungarian town with all the other 
towns the weight of the railways is merely three-quarters of that of the 
bus services on the average. The differences between the various town 
categories are spectacular, these are, however, not always consistent ac-
cording to the „curve" in relation to size. The relatively great role played 
by the railways in the county seats in accordance with the requirements is 
not only a consequence of their network junction position but in several 
cases also that of the running of long-distance trains on a railway net-
work formed by means of long bypasses. In accordance with the original 
conceptions the railway positions of the non-county seat towns are al-
ready weaker, yet strangely enough, in the large urbanised rural com-
munities the value of the railway is enhanced, rising to a parity value of 
the bus services in comparison with the former categories. 
The traffic value of the individual towns is greatly influenced by 
the number of through connections and the number of the towns they 
have connections with. According to our calculations  (Figure 7)  in the 
system of connections of all our towns (similarly to the existing situation 
of the regional centres and county seats)  Miskolc  and  Szeged  form the 
two main foci. The value of Miskolc reached first of all on account of 
this railway is adequate with its size in this respect, too. The value of 
Szeged,  however, reached on account of the overwhelmingly transversal 
interregional bus services is somewhat higher than its size might justify 
it. This is a great achievement also because its situation along the frontier 
is unfavourable from the aspect of creating a multi-directional system of 
relations. On the other hand, the public transportation companies which 
have a high esteem for the central cultural-scientific function of the 
town, practically „over-compensated" the disadvantage of its peripheral 
situation. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
On the other hand, the inland cities of  Kecskemet  and  Szekesfeher-
var with their connections with 44 towns each are competing for the sec-
ond and third places „in a tie" and owe their high traffic values to the 
transit lines crossing and running within them. It is characteristic of both 
cities that a higher number of towns can be reached by means of bus 
services starting from and to them, but the ones which can be reached by 
trains as well also have a share of over 50%. The city of Pecs which 
ranks fourth (41 connections) is also in a fairly peripheral position- but 
this is counterbalanced by the fact both north- and westward it has an 
extensive action scope in the southern half of the country. The railway 
has dominance in providing connections, in spite of the fact that over the 
Danube only the Baja Bridge leads to the Great Hungarian Plain. Despite 
its extremely favourable central position,  Szolnok  town has to make do 
with the fourth place, because its motor coach connections are relatively 
underdeveloped (in the „shadow" of its excellent railway connections). 
The towns functioning as county seats are connected with 39.8 ur-
ban settlements. The formation of the values is moderately related to the 
size of the towns (the towns with over 100,000 inhabitants are connected 
with 41.9, while those with inhabitants below that number, with 33.2 
towns, respectively) with the geographical situation playing only a sub-
ordinate role. 
The average number of the connections of the other towns (17.1) 
falls significantly behind that of the county seats, and the connections of 
the large urbanised rural communities are even weaker than that (11.3). 
Some relation, however, can be shown between the size and the number 
of connections within the non-county seats. (The average number of the 
connections being 11.4 in the towns with a population below 20,000, 
17.6 in the ones with a population between 20,000-40,000, 22.1 in those 
with a population between 40,000-60,000 while in the towns with a 
population over 60,000 it is 28.) 
The long-distance connections are often hindered by the lack of ac-
cess roads because of the county limits. The effect of the county limits 
interrupting the economic space, a kind of traffic discontinued on both 
sides of the limits is actually revealed in the lack of roads between the 
large rural communities (lying close to each other geographically). This 
is so because the Power motivated by the particular interests of the indi-
vidual counties gave preference to the centripetal directed connections 
over the centrifugal ones. By the elimination of the lack of various types 
of connections, classes and functions, an extremely different weight or 
20 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
significance of the regional and inter-settlement relations can be estab-
lished. 
The current lack of roads may be justified only by the existence of 
the natural obstacles which can be overcome only by using dispropor-
tionately high expenses. The ancient county limits were often demarcated 
on the forest-covered mountain ridges, or along the bigger streams or 
rivers which could be crossed only by means of a long bridge or a ferry. 
It is profitable to overcome the natural obstacles only when the expected 
consequence brought about is a significant improvement in the traffic 
connections both for the smaller and the larger region, which is rarely the 
case. Road construction is hindered again, if between the settlements to 
be connected a nature conservation area is situated, where only a limited 
amount of intervention is possible. 
With the construction of certain roads the accessibility of some 
central settlements of the neighbouring county might become more fa-
vourable from some rural communities. Thus, there is a „danger" that the 
gravity zone of the present centre of settlements may lose the rural com-
munity in the functional sense, as well as the county from its administra-
tive area. 
2. Public transport links in the gravity zones 
On account of its wide use this may sound as a commonplace that traffic 
has a decisive role in the formation and extension of the gravity zones, 
since all exchanges of material nature — indirectly the communication of 
ideas — between the central settlements and their gravity zones are me-
diated by the traffic. So the possibility of asserting the gravity of a cen-
tral settlement is conditional upon the possible distance provided by the 
traffic connection. As this is an interaction, the gravity zones are gener-
ated by the traffic performances between the attracting and the attracted 
settlements. In Hungary the gravity zone-related traffic performances 
have a share of 90-92 % with regard to the whole of inland traffic. 
In  Hungary (with the exception of Budapest) the gravity zones are 
not large enough to have an independent suburban rapid-transit system 
with their attracted neighbourhood. The smaller the centre, the more the 
sections of long-distance traffic which are close to the centre become 
carriers of its relationship with the gravity zone. Railway traffic has a 
marked character of gravity zone only in the agglomeration of the capital 
— and somewhat beyond that territory — and commuter trains are run 
only in the gravity zones of a few larger provincial towns. One can travel 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
to small or medium-sized centres only by through or long-distance rail-
way trains. 
a) The relationship of smaller towns with their county seats 
From among the needs for long-distance-intercity travelling the smaller 
the difference between the populations and functions of the investigated 
towns and the longer the distance between them is, the less the weight of 
travelling to work or on business becomes. In this respect the irregular, 
ad hoc, aperiodic travels — connected with visits, entertainment and 
tourism — for private purpose are more characteristic. The greater the 
differences of size and function between two towns are, the greater the 
possibilities of the establishment of traffic of gravity zone character to-
wards the town of greater importance are. The latter includes the traffic 
connection of the towns with their respective county seats. Of course, the 
double, temporary character of this cannot be denied, since besides the 
gravity zone relationship and subordination to the county seats, which 
rank higher in the hierarchy of public administration, the relationship of 
the interconnection type also functions. 
The basic requirement of a through connection of the urban settle-
ments with their county seats was to be met not only under the former 
three-level system, but also under the new one-level management (based 
on the local governments of settlements) since it cannot be given up to-
day either for the simple reason that the accessibility of the county seats 
service centres from the rural settlements is two-grade: the towns collect 
and mediate at the same time the traffic directed from the provinces to-
wards the county seats. Basically our traffic meets this requirement. 
There are merely two towns that have neither railway nor bus connec-
tions with their county seats  (Gyomaendro'd, Csenger),  and from some of 
them the county seats may be reached only by rail without having to 
change trains  (Cegled, Tokaj, Csurgo, Zahony, Methhegyes  etc.). 
b) Accessibility of the central settlements from their zones 
In connection with institutional centralisation and the increased demand 
of the rural population the role of the (public) transport of the gravity 
centres has been greater lately than before because 
– on the one hand, traffic — together with other factors — which 
ensures the utilisation of the workplaces concentrated in the cent-
ral settlements and that of the institutional services has the power of 
retaining the population, 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
— on the other hand, adequate traffic communication between the 
settlements belonging to the district is the criterion of the proper 
functioning of the centralised (not only administrative) institutional 
network, thus traffic may be interpreted as the primary condition of 
districtisation. 
The regional system of public administration is formed from the 
elements of administrative-settlement constructions of different legal sta-
tus put down in rules as a result of the clash, confrontation and recon-
ciliation of the individual ideas and power relations often disguised as 
settlement-regional-communal conceptions and collective interests. (At 
best with taking into account the settlement-structural endowments of the 
counties as well as the local traditions.) In principle, the aspects to be 
considered should also include accessibility of the central settlements 
from the viewpoint of traffic. Although the legitimacy of this require-
ment has been declared time over again, in reality the connections in 
public transport often play a less important role than required. 
The approximately complete system of the traffic connections 
within one region can be revealed by the investigation of the complicated 
scope of movement of the communication formed by the centres of dif-
ferent size and scope of authority. In this way it is possible to give an 
outline of the hierarchical regional structure of the inter-settlement traffic 
possibilities. To classify them we also have to make clear what needs the 
public transport is supposed to meet. 
We have to take as a point of departure the system of the railway 
network and the service structure of public transport, at the same time 
singular needs of low frequency should be neglected on account of the 
ability of society to bear burdens. The network has to meet the regular 
needs of a large number of people for changing place and for services (in 
sub- or co-ordination) arising in certain flow vectors, mainly in connec-
tion with work (job-related traffic). The former principle, however, 
should be applied with adequate flexibility. In vain did regional devel-
opment make efforts to decentralise the workplaces and services, these 
were basically allocated to the centres-settlements belonging to different 
grades of the hierarchy. Therefore, in the present stage of our socio-eco-
nomic development the demand for the accessibility of the central set-
tlements without having to change vehicles from the settlements that be-
long to them administratively formerly and also functionally now should 
be recognised as a civic right. The is the minimal demand, which may be 
enhanced by further demand for a number of daily services (over 1 or 2 
even in the small villages) travelling to and from within the official 
23 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
working hours (8-16 hours) or by the need for the adjustment of services 
to the different parts of the day etc. 
The characteristics of the system of traffic connections are not in-
dependent of the fact how much the settlements have been explored for 
traffic, that is to what extent they are related to the public transport net-
work. Only 31.7% of our settlements have railway stations, but today 
only a few of them do not have access to the bus network (within 3 kil-
ometres). Among them such viable villages can be found which have 
only railway connections with their towns, and only some dwarf villages 
not being viable are deprived of any connection with public transport. 
There is, however, a higher number of those villages which are never 
entered by buses only as far as the road junctions, some 1-4 km-s away. 
For this reason in terms of today's needs we classify some 20 joint rural 
communities and also 6 dwarf villages having been annexed to other set-
tlements as „quasi-provided" for. 
Traffic with a gravity zone character has been formed most mark-
edly within the environs of the county seats which function as the largest 
centres of employment and special service, and extended the most 
loosely to several counties, in road traffic and inter-settlement bus trans-
port. 
We investigated the accessibility of the county seats according to 
the following guidelines. 
—From what part and what proportion of the county is it possible 
to reach the county seat and from where is it not? 
—Where and to what extent is the traffic gravity of the county seat 
of the neighbouring county asserted within one county as against 
its own county seat? 
—How is the territory of the counties belonging to the direct grav-
ity scope of their own county seats structured on the basis of 
time of accessibility, i.e. at what „temporal distance" do the set-
tlements lie from the county seat? 
To give a reply to these questions we calculated the population 
number of the settlements in relation to the given area and also its pro-
portion to the total population number of the county. The practical in-
formation value of this is much higher than e.g. that of the territorial 
proportions (calculated in km 2) greatly influenced by the settlement 
structure. It turned out that in none of our counties has been fulfilled the 
rightful demand to get access to the county seat without having to change 
vehicles. There are great variations  . as to the percentages of the popula-
tion being compelled to do without this connection. The extreme values 
24 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
characterise two neighbouring counties: 9.2 of  county Hajclit-Bihar  and 
41.3 of  county Szabolcs-Szattnar.  Comparing the values of the other 
counties we cannot outline any real characteristics according to regions, 
yet some differences between the different parts of the county (the large 
regions) can already be noticed. The picture is more favourable in the 
Great Hungarian Plain in the regions which have large and giant villages 
than those in Transdanubia and the northern mountainous region charac-
terised by the presence of small and tiny villages, where the values are 
higher. The situation of the county seat within the given county also ex-
ercises influence on the number of settlements which can be found in 
„traffic shadow": those situated centrally have advantages, while the ones 
lying on the very periphery (in focus situation) have perceivable disad-
vantages (Figure 8). 
The majority of the regions lying in „traffic shadow" can be found 
on the peripheries of the counties containing the counterpart of their 
county seats. One of the main reasons of the existence of „shadow spots" 
is the historical function of the „counter-centre", the strong gravity of the 
fairly sovereign other town, as opposed to the county seat. The other rea-
son is the small region, or rather microregion, being in a peculiar outly-
ing position as compared to the general character of the county seat (e.g. 
sometimes in a tongue position or a dead end) and having been annexed 
here administratively. This is particularly so, if there is a small town 
functioning as an economic sub-centre in it which is acknowledged by 
the population as a viable, attractive settlement being able to assert its 
space-organising power. Of course, even the existence of larger spots 
cannot be fully explained with the help of these two reasons. In several 
places the fact of being situated by the state boundary has an influence as 
well as the (economic, cultural) „steeply declining" (differences), relative 
backwardness, or marginal position in an abstract sense. In some places 
the gravitation effect of the other region is stronger than that of the own 
county centre with which the traffic connection is insufficient. (As a con-
sequence of the earlier construction of the tracks according to quite dif-
ferent regional considerations.) 
Investigating the territorial proportion of the settlements which are 
not directly connected with the county seat according to the gravity 
zones, we can see that the proportions compared to the number of the in-
habitants fall behind the proportions of the settlement, since the ones de-
prived of connections are mainly in villages which are smaller than the 
average. 
25 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
Among the county seats Budapest has the strongest gravity in traf-
fic, to such an extent that it has a through connection with all the settle-
ments of several urban gravity zones belonging to its internal and par-
tially external agglomeration ring on the territory of its county. The 
gravity of the other seats is enough only to be asserted within their own 
county in the town environs nearby, which is the result of the excellent 
connection and originally favourable endowments relating to the network 
or to the value of tourism. 
At the other extreme can be found the gravity zones out of which 
from none, or from most settlements it is not possible to reach the county 
seats by through services. These areas and urban seats of diverse charac-
ter both belong to a different category, thus the cause of the phenomenon 
is homogeneous inasmuch, as they lie in a traffic shadow. 
In investigating the accessibility of non-county seats we calculated 
the road distance between the rural communities and their administrative 
urban centres, the mean values of which differ 1.56 times from county to 
county. The mean values show only a very loose relationship with the 
settlement structure of the counties. In the function of the road length the 
average size of the rural communities, the territorial size of the adminis-
trative city environs may play a greater role than the situation of the 
towns within the region. 
In 51.2% of the gravity zones of towns the administrative centre 
may not be reached from every rural community either by rail or by bus. 
Behind the national average strong regional dispersion is hidden. In the 
Great Hungarian Plain there are deficiencies only in 43.1% of the city 
environs with regard to through public transport, while the same indica-
tor is as low as 6.8% in Transdanubia, and as high as 71.7% in the 
Northern Mountainous Region. To give an explanation of the marked 
territorial differences according to these three large regions in a rough 
approximation it will be sufficient to refer to the average area size as the 
chief factor of influence. When, however, we go into fine details of 
analysis and examine the concrete relations of the individual environs as 
well, factors which can be traced back to inadequate administrative re-
gional development also emerge. 
The first type of factors includes gravity zones (occupying the 
same area as the former traditional districts having a great past) the cen-
tres of which have always had a central position and consequently, tradi-
tionally their traffic got under the influence of another gravity centre, or 
the orientation of traffic is divided by several centres. The second type is 
made up of the gravity centres which bear the consequences of the fusion 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
of former districts completely or overwhelmingly. The former district 
centres continued to remain sub-centres of production and employment 
as a rule and since the loss of their administrative function the economic 
potential of most of them has shown some moderate growth. All this 
made the maintenance of traffic oriented towards them on the same or 
nearly the same level indispensable, that is, their range of duties as traffic 
sub-centres had to be kept. At the same time, from the most remote 
communities — mainly from which the route led inevitably across the 
former centre — no through services were provided for the people trav-
elling from the provinces to the new district centres with the purpose of 
dealing with their administrative affairs and making use of services. In 
this way the necessary change of the regional order of public transport 
fell behind the administrative regional changes. The so-called town sur-
roundings (as former administrative units in Hungary), which are succes-
sors of the formerly fused districts, have to face the vital problem of the 
lack of through connections with the more remote communities being 
under their administration. 
We are aware of the fact that the three main factors mentioned 
above become obvious only in some of the town environs. This is so be-
cause the situation of most town surroundings may be the result of the 
combined effect of several (partly unknown, or only suspected, but not 
confirmed) factors. Generally speaking, the size and higher hierarchical 
functions (county seat function above all) of the towns affect favourably 
the traffic connection formed with the neighbourhood, but the period of 
enjoying the legal town status and the degree of industrialisation are not 
asserted unanimously. The size of the town district area also contributed 
to some extent. In the evolution of the examined phenomenon the gen-
eral development level of the traffic network, its spatial position relating 
to the centre as well as the configuration of terrain and the hydrographi-
cal relations influencing it, can be classified as special factors which 
have a great importance nonetheless. Anomalies emerged from two di-
rections. On the one hand, developments were not adequate with the 
needs, on the other hand, the hasty designation of the administrative en-
virons mostly left out of consideration the traffic endowments. In con-
nection with the latter one examples can be found which cast doubt even 
on the use of the establishment of a given regional unit.  For example, the 
establishment of the not too extensive large rural community environs of 
Budaors,  from three-quarters of which it was not possible to reach its 
own centre without having to change vehicles and where the main vector 
of movement of the population towards Budapest is traditionally pro- 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
vided by the traffic. The fact, how much proximity to Budapest is not the 
source of anomaly, is proved by the counter-example of  Erd town. 
Obviously those settlements (and inhabitants) are at the greatest 
disadvantage, from which it is not possible to reach either the adminis-
trative towns, or their county seats without having to change vehicles. 
These settlements form islands in singles or in pairs, but some also form 
extensive territories consisting of (may be a dozen) places. As  Figure 9 
shows, the most extensive ones can be found by the frontier in  county 
Borsod-Abatij-Zemplen.  The territorial distribution of these and others 
proves that the state and county boundaries as well as the town district 
limits are capable of interrupting the spatial communication centres on 
the basis of separate regional interests. Therefore, we can conclude that 
even one smaller regional unit is able to form a periphery in the pejora-
tive sense! 
Up to 1990 until the establishment of the local (self-)governments 
in Hungary, one administrative unit was formed from several tiny vil-
lages. Then it was not negligible, how the central rural communities 
(county seats) could be reached from the joint communities by means of 
public transport  (Figure 10).  This problem, however, has lost signifi-
cance with the smallest villages (former joint-communities) gaining inde-
pendence. 
Apart from the administrative centres described above, there are 
also centres of non-city status ensuring employment requiring the devel-
opment of an independent traffic microsystem which would be of differ-
ent texture from the one related to the administrative regional system 
(Figure 11).  According to our calculations the percentage of the vacan-
cies in the rural communities of the country was 10.7. Most of them were 
county seats, or they had an independent council, while 2.9% of the joint 
communities belonged to this category. In the territorial position of these 
— employment microcentres having aroused only some interest in the 
field of statistical and geographical research — only a few regularities 
can be pointed out. 
3. The sphere of functions of the towns as traffic junctions 
By means of the traffic junction value it is possible to classify the central 
local value of the settlements, or the degree of their suitability for be-
coming central places. Here and now we are going to examine only the 
traffic junction function of our towns, but in the next chapter we will 
also discuss the great differences in the utilisation of the development 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
potential arising from the junction position, and the causes of differenti-
ated development, too. 
The first public transport centres are railway junctions which have 
left their mark on the national map of junctions even after the develop-
ment of bus traffic. The majority of the counties oriented the feeder or 
branch lines towards their seats. The orientation of most tracks towards 
the county seats was, from the first, possible only in the counties with an 
adequate number of inhabitants, adequate area size and branch-lines, 
administered from county seats which were definitely neither of highland 
character, nor insignificant. Yet within the framework of the mountain 
range embracing historical Hungary, in the counties of small area, situ-
ated in the valleys and cut across only by a few railway lines with small 
towns as their centres, because of the lack of the essential conditions 
even rational arguments could not be found to justify the endeavour to 
establish a county-seat-centred network. 
Although the conditions of becoming railway monocentres were 
more or less the same for the county seats, on the edge of the basin our 
larger towns functioning as regional or county seats — formed on the 
flatland or highland areas — could become really dominant junctions. 
This phenomenon, however, has come to a standstill, in the case of the 
mid- highland or mountainous regions (which coincided with the geo-
graphical periphery of the country, where the pressure of multiplying the 
radial network was no more relevant) it could not be realised. The most 
dense junction-inducing networks were formed in the largest and richest 
counties articulated by the gravity centres of numerous small or larger 
central settlements in the low hilly country or flatlands with the highest 
productivity in agriculture. These counties had a multitude of branch-
lines built for themselves, according to the provincial conceptions. Here 
the density of junctions as compared to the population, the number of 
settlements and the length of tracks had a favourable effect on the up-
swing and development of the activities in the gravity zones, the func-
tional strengthening of the centres, the expansion of their scope. In this 
way the junctions indirectly contributed to the further regional differen-
tiation of the various regions of the country. 
In determining whether a town is suitable for becoming a gravity 
zone centre, we have taken into account considerations related to traffic. 
One of them is the number of the converging railway and bus lines 
(weighting it by their hierarchical rank which also indicates their pro-
ductivity) and the other is the number of railway and bus services  (Fi-
gure 12, Table 1). 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
Table 1 
Values of the towns as traffic junctions by the number of the 
converging railway and bus lines in 1987 
Settlement 
Mean railway 
Mean bus 
To t a 1 
categories 
scores 
% 
scores 
% 
scores 
% 
County seat towns 
9.4 
49.5 
9.6 
5o.5 
19.0 
100.0 
Other towns 
4.8 
45.2 
6.5 
54.8 
11.3 
100.0 
Large villages with 
municipality 
4.2 
51.9 
3.9 
48.1 
8.1 
100.0 
Professor T  Lijewski  from Warsaw classified „the centrality of posi-
tion" of the Polish towns on the basis of the number of lines, while „their 
centrality in traffic" on the basis of the number of services. 
In the interest of correct weighting we converted the number of lines 
into scores. The main conclusions of the comparative analysis are the follow-
ing. 
– Out of the 165 examined Hungarian provincial towns 102 are non-
railway junctions (16.7 % of the county seats, 62.4 % of the other 
towns and 78.2 % of the large rural communities, namely in compa-
rison with T. Lijewski's data. 
– As opposed to Poland, in Hungary the county seats are in a far better 
position than the other towns with regard to the railway lines con-
verging in them. This also supports our proposition that the structure 
of the railway network was doubly centralised in a capital- and 
county-seat-centred way. Only in 6 counties (those of  Tolna, Heves, 
Nagrcid, Veszpreni, Bacs-Kislcun  and  Zala) the largest railway junc-
tion is not a county seat. 
– The majority of our urban settlements — disregarding a few excep-
tions mainly of the Great Hungarian Plain — also fulfil the function 
of smaller or bigger bus transport junctions according to their hierar-
chical status. 
– There are three cases where non-county seats are the largest centres 
of bus traffic. In Poland, however, the lines are concentrated in the 
county seats without exception. 
– As opposed to Poland, in Hungary the number (or score value) of the 
converging railway lines has a fairly close correlation with the num-
ber of inhabitants of the cities, or rather with the proportion of the 
inhabitants making their living in the service sector. The formerly 
compared factors show a definitely close correlation with the num-
ber of bus lines. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
In spite of the fact that the majority of towns have been junctions 
of railway traffic for a long time — being much more suitable for long-
distance transport than the motor coaches are — owing to the several 
times denser network of bus traffic and also as a result of the more in-
tensive passenger traffic sometimes of a suburban character which the 
towns formed with their gravity zones, the number of trains reaches or 
exceeds that of the buses only in a few cases. These are mainly weakly 
urbanised-industrialised market towns of the Great Hungarian Plain pro-
viding employment only for a few commuters and being situated mostly 
along the trunk line and also the so-called agglomerational „sleeping 
towns" related to the capital by suburban rapid-transit railways. The 
other extreme is represented by the towns not having a connection with 
the railway network  (Tiirkeve, Letenye, MOrahalom)  and those being in 
end position at the by-lines. 
The number of trains per working day is dispersed between 130 
and 0 in the urban settlements. The population living next to the first 
ramifying junctions of the trunk lines originating radially from the capi-
tal are in the most advantageous position, with  Szekesfehervar  having 
130 trains a day in the lead. From among the provincial cities lying a 
long way from Budapest only  Miskolc  could attain outstanding railway 
passenger transport (93 trains), although it was enough only for keeping 
the fourth place. The cities situated at the junction of trunk- and branch-
lines have a moderately high number of trains. Occasionally the traffic of 
the towns situated along a single trunk line is greater than of those to be 
found at the junctions of smaller branch-lines because in the provincial 
areas the local traffic feeding is very little, transit traffic, on the other 
hand, plays a subordinate role. 
As compared to the number of trains the formation of the number 
of bus services is more closely connected with the functional factors, 
such as the number of the commuters, the sphere of functions related to 
tourism as well as the way of connection with the network and the geo-
graphical position. Since the monocentric structure of the country leaves 
its mark on the overall structural conditions of the bus network, not only 
is the strength of the junctions according to the number of services repre-
sented by the spatial organizing power of the town (shown by the volume 
of the gravity zone traffic) but it is also influenced, distorted as it were, 
by the amount of transit traffic usually decreasing in proportion to the 
distance from the capital. (For example, the second place held by  Szekes-
fehervar with its 470 services is strongly, the third place held by  Veszp-
rem  with its 462 services is moderately influenced also by the transit traf- 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
fie.) A smaller part of the distortion is produced by the more significant 
transversal bus lines, therefore, their value may be noteworthy in their 
junctions. 
In this way the (national) network endowments leave their mark on 
the volume of both the railway and bus traffic independently of the local 
forces. Consequently, in the field of travelling facilities the inhabitants of 
the cities may be in quite different positions. The good network endow-
ments may create a privileged situation in the form of a „give-away traf-
fic royalty" as an accessory advantage added to the initial individual en-
dowments of a town, while elsewhere the towns may be compelled to 
offset the below-average network endowment by means of their own de-
velopments, the pace of which always lags behind the other productive 
and other functional performances and the traffic demand induced by 
them. The traffic demand arising in this way may be reduced by the op-
erating of bus services of non-public use at the cost of the urban employ-
ers (the use of contractual, hired, special factory bus services is signifi-
cantly more frequent in the places with worse endowments). 
In the first approximation we evaluate the centrality of traffic on 
the basis of the sumtotal of train and bus services started from the urban 
settlements on a working day. The average number of passenger trains 
per town is 35 in Hungary, 82 in Poland, the number of bus services in 
Hungary is 126, in Poland 324, the sumtotal of train and bus services in 
Hungary is 161, in Poland it is 406. 
Categorical differences can be indicated (with regard to averages) 
between the urban settlements in linearity according to the existing hier-
archy (inversion could be identified only in the number of trains to the 
advantage of the large urbanised rural communities and also in the age of 
the towns relating to whether they were „socialist cities" or traditional 
towns, to the advantage of the latter). 
The frequency of bus services is 3.6, in Poland 3.9 times higher 
than that of the railway. Since the buses (apart from a few exceptions) 
run between 5-22 hours, in our calculations they run from the cities eve-
ry 8.2 minutes on the average, while in Poland every 3 minutes. 
The population of the cities and the proportion of those employed 
in the service sector correlate with the number of trains only loosely in 
Hungary, while in Poland this correlation is tight. In the case of bus ser-
vices the two contrasted factors correlate tightly, while in Poland some-
what less tightly. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
On the basis of the total number of (train and bus) services, the ur-
ban settlements of Hungary can be classified according to the intensity of 
their public transport as follows: 
—national monocentre Budapest with 1590 services, 
—localities with outstanding main traffic: cities with services over 
440  (Miskolc  625,  Szekesfehervar  600,  Veszprem  498,  Erd 496, 
Eger 450, Pecs 447), 
—main traffic localities with 340-349 services, 
—localities with heavy traffic with 240-339 services, 
—localities with medium traffic with 140-239 services, 
—localities with some traffic with 70-139 services, 
—localities with insignificant traffic, with services below 70. 
In this case we do not use the word „junction" because in the ma-
jority of the urban settlements most of the vehicular traffic is added up 
from through traffic, thus the point in question is not only the (gravity 
zone) traffic induced by them and the related junction position, but also 
that of the traffic „suffered" and transferred by them. As a consequence 
of this the value of the traffic places correlates with hierarchical catego-
ries (county seats, other towns and large urbanised rural communities), 
yet within certain traffic categories often there is a lack of a moderately 
close connection with the hierarchical levels, and even more so with the 
population number of a given town. 
The specific measured data of the services provide much more 
relevant information as compared to the absolute data. The hierarchy de-
termined on the basis of the absolute data leads to quite a different rank-
ing and the weight of our towns in passenger traffic becomes different in 
the light of the specific data. The urban settlements being in the most ad-
vantageous position all belong to the group of towns with a low number 
of inhabitants. At the same time it is clear that most of them obtain privi-
leges by means of transit traffic. The first three taking the lead have no 
railways of their own. The towns of medium size are present within the 
range of 75-100 services, while the large cities within that of 50-75 ser-
vices, yet most of them can be found among the ones with 25-50 ser-
vices. The most surprising is the category with the smallest number of 
services (below 25), which includes in addition to our 3 largest cities 
(Debrecen, Pecs and Nyiregylzaza)  some small towns  (HajdfinanOs, Jasz-
bereny, Tiirkeve, Balmazidvaros  and  Tiszakecske)  as well. 
In the overwhelming majority of the settlements (rural communi-
ties) belonging to the category of junctions of non-city status, the weight 
of the bus traffic is much greater even in comparison with the city junc- 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
tions. Their junction score value measured on the basis of the number of 
the converging lines only slightly depends on the population number, and 
even less on the function, because the number of secondary road junc-
tions having a decisive role otherwise is also fairly independent of the 
examined factors. The correlation is loose,  On  the one hand, between the 
number of the services of the communities, the number of the lines con-
verging in them and their population number, and there is not a close in-
terrelationship with their function either on the national average. Al-
though the large urbanised-industrialised rural communities being ex-
posed to tourism to the greatest extent have attained a number of services 
above the average by means of the commutation induced by them, they 
are out-rivalled by the localities situated along the sections of the main 
traffic axes next to the towns, irrespective of their size and functions. 
The circumstances , of commutation and urbanisation are greatly 
influenced by the fact that in Hungary — as opposed to the international 
tendencies — the structure of employment is more developed than the 
development level of the economy, at the same time the level of urbani-
sation falls even behind the level required by the economic development 
level by some 15%. 
As a result of the interaction of passenger traffic and commutation, 
there is a close correlation between the extent, intensity and distance of 
the commuting conditions as well as with the regional intensity of traffic. 
It is an open question, to what extent the statement above applies to the 
relationship of the public transport for common use and commutation. As 
a consequence of dependence on public transport to the extent of 95-
96%, the territorial structure of commutation should be adjusted greatly 
to the regional structure of railway and interurban motor coach traffic for 
common use. In broad outlines it is a projection of the public transport 
structure shown above, but there is also significant incongruence, the 
main cause of which is the fact that the traffic network has to be formed 
according to the rules of traffic needs and network shaping function. 
Although job-related traffic has an average share of 50-60% from the to-
tal of passenger traffic, this rate is strongly (between 16-95%) dispersed 
depending on the concrete regional conditions of places of work and resi-
dence. 
Namely, traffic is only a condition of commutation, and not its pri-
mary cause. Therefore, even a relatively low-performance traffic line is 
able to carry a relatively heavy job-related traffic, just like vice versa 
(under the conditions of overcrowdedness and moderate use for other 
purposes). The other cause of commutation not quadrating with the 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
structure of public transport is the fact that despite the fairly significant 
share of bus traffic for non-common use (nationally between 23-28%) 
has a performance which is undemonstrable by regions or routes. 
Several employment centres went after the remote settlements in-
accessible by scheduled services and got the recruitable labour force by 
means of special bus services. By this means a commutation zone of little 
intensity formed within 20-30 km-s is replaced inversely outwards by a 
more intensive zone in the region of the terminus of the special services 
in several places. Thus the distribution of commutation — in inverse 
proportion to the distance — with its regularities described in the techni-
cal literature applies only to the part „dominated" by the public means of 
transport for common use. 
The tables demonstrating the labour force gravity zones of the cit-
ies show conspicuous differences between the Great Hungarian Plain and 
the large mountainous and hilly regions. 
The following factors of the space-forming factors of commutation 
can be pointed out: 
– the regional differences of the extent of commutation, their weight in 
the employment of the population as a result of the economic struc-
ture, 
(In the Great Hungarian Plain — as a consequence of the relative 
poverty in the non-agrarian workplaces and in certain places of 
the high labour demand of the intensive agricultural cultures —
the rate of commuters is lower than elsewhere in the country, at 
the same time most of the commuters do not travel every day, 
only periodically, at longer intervals and long distance. The rate 
of commuters travelling daily short distance is higher in the west-
ern and northern parts of the country.) 
– the dissimilar settlement structure of the labour-emitting region, 
(In environments with tiny villages thus in Transdanubia there is 
a strong dispersion of the commuters' domiciles.) 
– the territorial relationship of vacancies and labour supply. 
(Within this the territorial distribution of the towns (their density 
and dispersion) is relevant. It is nearly exclusively characteristic 
of the Great Hungarian Plain that a lot of cities border on each 
other, they are not only twins and are often connected in a series 
interrupted by a rural community now and then, with real junc-
tions and city concentrations — mainly in the region east of Ri-
ver Tisza — greatly restructuring thereby the formation of the 
gravity zones of some towns.) 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
It is clear then that factors other than traffic may also have a strong 
influence on the formation of the structure. As for the passenger traffic 
network influencing the commutation, the accessibility conditions of 
public transport are much more favourable concerning the towns in the 
Great Hungarian Plain with regard to both journey time and frequency of 
services because of the plain surface, the less densely situated settlements 
and the more direct routing of the roads joining them as well as that of 
the services. 
Under the impact of the former factor in the Great Hungarian Plain 
the differences between the commutation gravity zones of the towns and 
the intensity of commutation directed to the towns is less marked than in 
Transdanubia or the northern range of the mountains. (In the regions 
with a scarcity of towns it is already the larger, urbanised-industrialised 
rural communities which fulfil the role of smaller employment centres.) 
On the whole, the labour force gravity zones of the towns in the Great 
Hungarian Plain (with the exception of the members of the town chains 
and concentrations) is more extensive, but has a looser structure, the 
„intensity curve" is less steep as a function of distance than around the 
towns of Transdanubia and Northern Hungary. 
THE IMPACT OF TRAFFIC ON THE REGIONAL AND 
SETTLEMENT DEVELOPMENT 
The fundamental question is in what forms the interactions of the traffic 
and settlement networks equally serving the most essential functions of 
the socio-economic life are revealed in the individual periods. The inter-
relationship of the two networks has an alternating direction in both 
space and time. 
Before the introduction of the railway the large-scale exchange of 
goods, the actual regional division of labour developed along the water-
ways, the navigable rivers. Therefore, significant differences emerged 
between the settlements situated along the rivers and those lying far 
away. The majority of our towns with the highest liquidity and excelling 
in crafts and trade came into being along the main navigation axes of the 
economic activity along the Danube and the Tisza rivers (and to some 
extent along the  Drava, K5ros, Maros, Vag,  etc. rivers) induced mainly 
by the trade in agricultural produce and the distribution of salt. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
Until the introduction of the railway there were not significant dif-
ferences in the supply of overland transport (only periodically depending 
on the minor roads). As a result of the necessity determined by the lim-
ited transport possibilities, the economic relations (apart from a few ex-
ceptions) were taking place within integrated settlements (e.g. within the 
settlement system of a large estate). The central places being adequate 
with the horse-drawn vehicular traffic were constituted by the market 
towns providing certain elementary services for their outskirts situated 
densely, within 15-18 km-s from each other even in the regions of 
Transdanubia and the northern range of mountains characterised by the 
predominance of tiny villages. 
Thus the mosaic-like spatial structure of the economy and the set-
tlement network was synthesised from microregions in the pre-railway 
era. (The general underdevelopment of the socio-economic relations en-
abled only the powerful development of the county seats, some trading 
centres situated advantageously, and of the mining towns located on local 
mineral resources.) With regard to the relationship of the roads and set-
tlements in those days the road was adjusted to the major historical cen-
tres, larger administrative centres (e.g. when  Sopron  town became a dis-
trict region, roads were oriented towards reaching it by a more direct 
route even in Southern Transdanubia), and some settlements excelled 
under the impact of the road only once in a while. In the final account, 
changes in the hierarchical territorial structure of the public road network 
in the 19th century were sufficient directly for the modifications of the 
settlement network only at the local (microregional) level for a long 
time. 
1. The strong impact of the railways 
The model of the interactive system of the railway traffic as set up by us 
(Figure 13)  has an economic orientation based practically on the multi-
plicator and accelerator effect of the railway. 
The influence of the railways exercised upon the economic and ur-
banisation development greatly depended on their output, on the length 
of their span and the date of construction. With the construction of the 
trunk line system (of its early parts in particular) the settlements joined 
by them as well as those lying next to them obtained such a special 
privilege with which the regions lying a long way from the trunk lines 
could not catch up with even the help of modern public road transport. 
The high-performance, long-distance communications connecting the 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
capital with the regions as strong macrostructure-'forming factors carried 
in themselves (practically pre-forming) the development axes and corri-
dors which can be shown even today. 
These were determined early by the overwhelming majority of the 
economic and urbanisation forces of the country and the local advantages 
recognised already a long time ago proved to be lasting and surviving 
even the large-scale motorisation of the public road, they have remained 
the chief elements of the country's general regional structure up to now. 
In this way the temporal priority became a regional advantage. There 
were, however, some towns (e.g.  Nagykanizsa, Szekesfehervcir, Eszek, 
Nyiregyhaza  etc.) which were the first to obtain railway trunk lines, nev-
ertheless in the late 19th century their development came to a standstill. 
There is not an unambiguous explanation of this phenomenon. The re-
gional distribution of the traffic may have contributed to it with the den-
sification of the railway network as well as the decentralisation of trade. 
Yet it is not out of the question either that the internal energies of city 
development became exhausted because of the limited possibilities pro-
vided by the underdeveloped socio-economic conditions and the eco-
nomic environment of the given settlement network. (Or the point in 
question may be that this is precisely the projection of the cyclicity of 
economic-regional development in settlement development.) 
The sumtotal of the branch lines constructed in the second phase of 
the railway construction (particularly of the by-lines which created a 
„dead end" situation) is longer than that of the trunk lines. The former 
played an important role in the traffic exploration of the areas lying a 
long way from the trunk lines. But under our underdeveloped capitalist 
conditions the side lines play only a minor role in attracting industrial 
premises (with the exception of the mining districts) and in the develop-
ment of the neighbouring (urban) settlements served by them. The reason 
for this is that their value for traffic and premises generally could not 
compete with that of the trunk lines. On the whole they were unable to 
bring about a dynamic development process of their own. Their con-
struction in the form of a dense network made commutation technically 
possible, but the relative costliness of the fares and the season tickets —
issued in Hungary only for the navvies at the turn of the century — pre-
vented it from becoming general and large-scale. 
In spite of all this the network of branch lines complementing the 
trunk lines has done away with the distance limits of the earlier interur-
ban horse-drawn transport, which had a low carrying capacity, and also 
with the basically autarchic microregional system of the gravity zones 
38 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
structured on the basis of the former. The branch lines enabled the most 
viable large rural communities and market towns having obtained an ad-
vantageous position under the new traffic conditions to become centres 
of the new gravity zones having a larger territory. The new centres ex-
panded their functions and were differentiated as centres of provision for 
tens of thousands of inhabitants. 
The gravity zone developing role of the branch lines was recog-
nised early in several counties and attempts were made by them to use it 
for the development of their own county seats, which were usually the 
largest gravity centres. These chiefly included the county seats which had 
become comparatively significant towns already in the first great period 
of the railway constructions up to the 1880s. Thus in counties such as  Gyik, 
Baranya, Somogy, Vas, Fejer, Szolnok, Szabolcs-Szatmar  and  Hajcla-Bihar 
the network of branch lines was constituted later mainly according to pat-
terns converging in the county seats. 
The network of the branch lines was developed in a different way in 
the counties where the trunk lines bypassed the county seats and within the 
county other urban settlements became the chief centres of traffic, and there-
by economic centres. The double-centredness of counties such as  Veszprem, 
Zala and  Tolna,  lasting up to the present  (Veszprem  versus Papa, Zalaeger-
szeg versus Nagykanizsa, Szekszard  versus  Dombovor)  in fact can be traced 
back to this peculiarity of the railway network development. In contrast with 
the county seats which function as economic monocentres (e.g.  Kapos-
var, Gy5r, Szekesfehervar, Szombathely, Szolnok, Debrecen),  in the county 
seats  (Veszprem, Zalaegerszeg)  there was hardly any — if any  (Szekszard) 
— concentration of the network of branch lines. The secondary centres be-
came junctions only at the intersection of the trunk lines, thus before the 
period of the construction of the local railway they did not attract branch 
lines to themselves  (Nagykanizsa)  or hardly any  (Papa, Dombovar). 
Because of the multi-directional nature of their regional relations 
the development potential of the stations being in a junction position was 
of the greatest value. Quite a great number of the elements of our stock 
of settlements which did not have a city status but were situated at junc-
tions contributed to and assisted the slow concentration of the productive 
forces. This can be accounted for by the fact that for the transportation-
intensive industrial plants (e.g. brickyards, steams mills, sawmills, dis-
tilleries etc.), among others, it was advantageous to select premises here, 
since it was easier to commute from here to their schools and offices. 
The most typical instance of the interaction between traffic and the 
settlements situated at junctions are shown by  Szolnok, Baja  and  Barcs 
39 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
towns above all, which also had the function of points of transhipment 
between river and railway. (The case of  Barcs  has model value: in the 
beginning it hardly excelled in population number and function as com-
pared to the neighbouring settlements, then it rapidly developed into an 
economic centre of mezo-regional — in several respects microregional 
— significance. Another paradigm type of railway-induced upswing is 
demonstrated by  Dombovar  town. Although its railway junction has a 
higher value than that of  Barcs  because of the convergence of trunk 
lines, it does not have a harbour. Here the development of the economic 
life was less complex because a significant part of the workplaces were 
related to the railway both organisationally and institutionally. 
At this point, however, we have to conclude that in the intensity of 
the utilisation of the junctions as premises, there are not great differences 
between the regions of our continent, depending on the level of their 
economic development. In Western Europe there were hardly any junc-
tions which failed to attract large-scale industry and to become demon-
strably a city-developing factor. In Hungary — similarly to the other 
countries of East-Central Europe — in the majority of the junctions there 
was not any serious large-scale industry located. Because of the insuffi-
cient development, the convergence of the lines, the junction position 
was not definitive in itself: it was not enough for the unfolding of the 
economic life, the concentration of modern productive activities, or for 
the large-scale development of the settlements concerned. The socio-
economic conditions of the day did not allow for the formation of the 
network of cities. Even the (significant and internationally busy) railway 
junctions situated in regions characterised by the scarcity of towns were 
not assisted by institutions with other central functions in the dynamic 
development of the settlements, at the same time the other development 
potentials were missing. 
Going beyond the regional examples, it seems necessary to do a 
country-wide investigation of the impact of the railways. In the city 
monographs the authors often relate the appearance of the railway to the 
general, but mainly economic development of a given settlement. At the 
same time it is rather complicated to determine the numerical value of 
the relationship which does exist inmost of the cases, though from the 
viewpoint of our topic it would be essential for us to know how differen-
tiated the assertion of the impact of traffic upon the development of the 
individual settlements was. We are well aware of the fact that population 
growth in itself does not indicate every moment of the development of a 
settlement, namely it does not integrate all the (e.g. production, infra- 
40 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
structural) development factors. For lack of something better, we are 
nevertheless compelled to measure the rate of settlement development by 
means of the formation of population growth and on this basis we should 
look for a correlation between the date of railway construction and ob-
taining the junction rank and the temporally changing rate of settlement 
development. 
At the time and after the formation of the junctions the rate of 
which can be regarded as average from the national perspective, long 
stagnating or hardly growing population number is characteristic of  Baja, 
Veszprem, Bekescsaba, Szentes, Vac  and  Papa. Baja belongs here pre-
sumably for the reason that by means of its harbour in the pre-railway 
period it enjoyed the uniquely privileged position of one of the most im-
portant commercial junctions of Southern Hungary. Not only did  Sza-
badka's (Subotica's) becoming a junction of trunk lines prevent the fur-
ther development of this unique function, but it also weakened it by de-
touring part of the transport (in the transportation of the grain of 
Bacska).  Yet to evaluate this peculiar condition we have to be aware of 
the fact that in spite of the stagnating population number the town wit-
nessed spectacular industrial development until World War I. Therefore 
our assumption that the railways did not have an insignificant role in this 
(through the assertion of the advantages of expanded transportation rela-
tionships) is not unfounded. 
In the largest cities of today's Hungary (in  Debrecen, Miskolc, 
Pecs, Szeged  and  GA-)  population growth was taking place with some 
phase shift in time, right after they had become leading railway junc-
tions. Although not to the same extent as the former cities, after their be-
ing promoted into significant railway junctions, fairly rapid population 
growth characterised  Kaposvar, Nagykanizsa, Sopron, Szombathely, Sze-
kesfehervar, Szolnok, Kecskemet, Nyiregyhaza  with significant phase de-
lay as well. (Probably the transfer of the county seat from  Nagykallo  had 
to do something with the „leap" of NyiregyhOza.) 
The second extreme category contains the towns which got only a 
by-line or a passing branch-line, where the lack of a constellation of 
other settlement developing forces impeded population growth. The most 
typical examples of this category are  Kalocsa  (although in Kalocsa the 
construction of the by-line was followed by temporary population 
growth),  Gyongyos, Esztergom, Szekszard, Kaszeg, Mohacs  towns and, to 
some extent,  Ozd.  (The moderate development of Eger can be accounted 
for by the comparative closeness of  Gyongyos  and the scarce possibilities 
41 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
of trade restricted merely to its microregion in addition to keeping the 
archbishopric at a distance from the railway trunk line.) 
The other towns are practically transitions between the two• ex-
treme types. Among them there are some towns where population growth 
took place independently of the railway construction. (For example, in 
the case of  Tatabanya  where impetus was given chiefly by the coal-
mining and the basic raw material industry based on it, but of course, 
without the presence of the railway it would not have been able to unfold 
either). 
Therefore, in the development of the Hungarian cities industriali-
sation did not play such a great role as in Western Europe, only in a few 
cases there is direct correlation between the two phenomena. Industriali-
sation cannot be regarded everywhere unambiguously as a consequence 
of the railway construction. 
2. The weak influence of vehicular traffic 
The third period of modern traffic history (when motorised road traffic 
became general in the countries with a dense or average dense railway 
network, thus also in Hungary) did not bring about a decisive change in 
the territorial structure outlined by the railway tracks. The reason for this 
is that road constructions and reconstructions were mainly adjusted to the 
traffic supply produced by the railways. Despite the very showy devel-
opment of the output of vehicular traffic in the shaping of the spatial 
structure, it considerably fell behind the railway which proved to be an 
extremely lasting space-organising force even in the long run. 
In the period between the two world wars, when the railway was 
not being built further and the bus network was still very underdevel-
oped, the settlement-developing-differentiating power of the traffic was 
significantly inactivated. Furthermore, as a consequence of the interna-
tional relations modified also by the new state boundaries the good traf-
fic situation, the privilege of being situated at a railway junction was not 
asserted in a number of towns (e.g. in  Nagykanizsa  and Kaposvar)  while 
from among the others having similar endowments  Szombathely,  despite 
its proximity to the border, belonged to the group of our fast developing 
towns. At the same time becoming richer in infrastructure other than 
traffic proved to be sufficient for the further development of the smaller 
towns in spite of the traditionally poor traffic situation. 
Between the two world wars in the Budapest-centred extension of 
. 
the trunk line network the moment (not only of political significance) of 
42 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
a decrease in the demand for maintaining relations with Austria also had 
an influence. As a result of this, the transversal roads lost much of their 
significance. (There are not any main lines among the transversal roads 
up to the present day and in the late 1930s there were few secondary 
lines as well.) For example, in Southern Transdanubia there was only one 
along the route of  Baja–Bonyhad–Dombovar–Kaposvdr–Nagykanizsa 
joined by that of the  Moluics–Pecs–Dombovar–Kaposvar  line with the 
Siimeg–Celldomolk  transversal some way off. Between the two world 
wars the railway constructions producing only sporadic sections of a few 
kilometres did not have any effect on the territorial structures. (This was 
the case even with the  Dunafadvar–Solt  track, which served over the 
Danube, having thus a unique geographical position.) 
From the 1950s in the location of „our socialist 'cities" the traffic 
situation played only a subordinate role. (The mining town of  Kom16  was 
built at the end of a railway by-line which had been constructed at the 
turn of the century;  Dunadjvaros,  the centre of metallurgy by a branch-
line;  Oroszldny  joined the trunk line by means of a by-line;  Lenin-
varos–Tiszadjvaros by a branch-line (see  Figure 2); only Kazincbarcika, 
a centre of chemical industry was located next to a secondary trunk line). 
The bad traffic endowment (which the quickly organised bus traffic 
could counter-balance only partly) greatly restrained the unfolding of the 
central supplying functions of the towns and conserved their character of 
„large-grown housing estates". The situation is even more contradictory, 
if we raise the problem of the strong transportation-intensity arising from 
their function in heavy industry, because transportation by water has a 
considerable role only in the iron ore supply of Dunaiilvaros. 
The city development rate becoming independent of the traffic 
situation can be pointed out in the case of the smaller traditional county 
seats with a long historical past.  Zalaegerszeg and  Veszprem  can be taken 
as examples of the most rapidly growing towns of the past three decades. 
The traffic situation is only rarely asserted in the formation of the hierar-
chy of cities. For example, when, among others, the county seats to be 
terminated were selected from the group of towns in a worse traffic 
situation, and the recently designated ones from among towns in a better 
traffic situation (the former include  Balassagyarmat, 1-16dmez5v asdrhely, 
Tata —  which are stagnating in spite of their development —, the latter 
include Salgotarjdn, Tatabanya and Szeged).  The dispersion of the aver-
age development rate of the Hungarian towns between 1960– 1975 was 
influenced rather by the size than the function of the settlements, conse-
quently, the traffic function did not get an important role. It deserves at- 
43 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
tention that there is a difference in the effects of railway and bus traffic. 
The impulses starting from the economic action centres established along 
the railway lines resulted in the functional morphological changes of the 
settlements which were asserted to a long distance even in the hinter-
lands. The impulses starting from the settlements situated by the railway 
lines had an effect — even if to a shorter distance — from the end of the 
19th century. Yet the regional differentiating effect of the bus traffic 
lines with a much denser network and often a higher frequency of serv-
ices could not be pointed out in a measurable  way,  when they connected 
only a smaller part of the settlements. The causes of the differences be-
tween the two kinds of public transport systems concerning the different 
effects and spatial organisation arranging the settlements in relation to 
each other were rooted in the difference of their service performances 
and traffic structures. 
Thus there is no doubt that nowadays from among the city devel-
oping factors traffic has a much more subordinate role than in the days of 
the establishment of the railway network. Namely, from the 1950-60s 
the „classical" developing factors were accompanied (or rather replaced) 
by new factors such as large-scale agriculture and building industry op-
erating within the organisation of large-scale enterprises. The possession 
of development energies and the above-average traffic situation are not 
the only vital city developing factors. Town development requires other 
favourite circumstances as well. 
In the field of regional development the planners often overesti-
mate the effects of the development of the traffic endowments on the ru-
ral regions. Yet in our opinion, which is based on empirical facts and on 
the analysis of the impact of access roads carried out in the 1970s, the 
improvement of the traffic facilities in itself is not a panacea for bringing 
the decrease of the rural population number to a stop. Namely, the causes 
of the decline in the population number were complex: the reproductive 
ability of the too aged population is insufficient (a mere 40— 60%) and 
migration which might substantially change the process cannot be ex-
pected. The infrastructural developments, among others those related to 
the traffic of the dwarf villages, are unable to bring about positive 
changes in influencing the circumstances of life. 
The „sleeping villages" which do not function as employment or pro-
vision centres but are situated close to the centre and are joined by the main 
communication channels, chiefly the railway lines, are becoming rapidly 
growing settlements of the city agglomerations by means of the people mov-
ing in from the rapidly emptying zones. Recently they have become capable 
44 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
of attracting new workplaces, too. For the time being it cannot be predicted, 
how much this process can be reversed by the financial aids and support des-
ignated for the development programmes of the underdeveloped regions, and 
by the new employment policy which is subordinated to the efficiency of 
production. The cheapness of labour still to be found on the peripheries is 
not an attractive force by itself, the lack of skills, however, is clearly an ob-
stacle to the location of modern innovative small businesses. 
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45 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
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47 

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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---

Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.

---

Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.

---

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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
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Erdősi, Ferenc: Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 1992. 47 p. 
Discussion Papers, No. 13.
Figure 13 
System of economic impacts of the railway traffic 
L Sectoral multiplicator 
II. Accelerator impact 
impact 
1. on cultural level of population 
2. on economy by cheap and large-
On the basis of its con-
scale output of transport services  
struction and investments 
1 
a/ direct 
b/ indirect 
a/ of goods 
h/ of passengers 
input it develops firstly 
with informatiai 
montan industry, secondly 
40-80 times 
cheaper fares than in 
with a demand for  I  =hinge and mass 
construction, building ma-
cheaper than 
mailooach + saving 
qualified manpovicr I convtainkation 
1  terial and machine industry 
licise-dam 
1  accomodatiai and 
I 
/militia 
transport 
, 
meal costs 
'1"  
Regional and economic outcomes 
1.1 
Regional division of labour 
long-distance co-operation in  production, 
large-scale and long-distance trade 
Industrialisation, 
Reducing marginal costs 
urbanisation 
along railway lines and around  stations, especially in junctions 
Manpower mobility, commuting  
Advantages of plants of production 
industrial, cultural advantages and those  of services, institutions 
Differentiation in regional development 
Stagnating or slowly 
Declining, backward or 
Developing regions 
developing regions 
depleting regions 
+ 
• 
+ 
Increasing value of residential 
Development axes, corridors 
area, plants of exploitation 
Agricultural production, 
industry in settlements 
declining small-scale industry 
around railway stations 
+ 
+ 
+ 
Concentration of population, 
Emigration of population, man- 
Stagna 
immigration, rising manpower 
Stagnating number o 
b 
f
power becoming relatively and 
costs 
l  ti 
popuaon 
+ 
• 
in some cases absolutely cheaper 
4. 
Railway trunks 
Railway branch (feed) lines 
Regions without railway line 
(with limited regional spread 
(with wide-spread accessibility 
(area without transport 
of accessibility) 
of large area) 
_ 
accessibility („discoveredness") 
Income level descend 
Migration 

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Discussion Papers 1992. No. 13. 
Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary 
The Discussion Papers series of the Centre for Regional Studies of the Hungari-
an Academy of Sciences was launched in 1986 to publish summaries of research 
findings on regional and urban development. 
The series has 3 or 4 issues a year. It will be of interest to geographers, econo-
mists, sociologists, experts of law and political sciences, historians and everybody else 
who is, in one way or another, engaged in the research of spatial aspects of socio-eco-
nomic development and planning. 
The series is published by the Centre for Regional Studies. 
Individual copies are available on request at the Centre. 
Postal address: 
Centre for Regional Studies of Hungarian Academy of Sciences 
P.O. Box 199,7601 PECS 
HUNGARY 
Phone: (36-72) 412-755,433-704 
Fax: (36-72) 410-390,333-704 
Telex: 12 475 duti h 
Director general: Ivan ILLES 
Editor: Laszlo HRUBI 
* * * 
Forthcoming  in the Discussion Papers series: 
The Basic Political and Structural Problems 
in the Workings of Local Governments 
in Hungary 
by 
Ilona, PALNE KOVACS 

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Discussion Papers 1992. No. 13. 
Transportation Effects on Spatial Structure of Hungary 
Papers published in the  Discussion Papers series 
No. 1 OROSZ, Eva (1986): Critical Issues in the Development of Hungarian 
Public Health with Special Regard to Spatial Differences 
No. 2 ENYEDI, Gyorgy — ZENTAI, Viola (1986): Environmental Policy in 
Hungary 
No. 3 HAJDU, Zoltan (1987): Administrative Division and Administrative Ge-
ography in Hungary 
No. 4 SIKOS T., Tamas (1987): Investigations of Social Infrastructure in Ru-
ral Settlements of Borsod County 
No. 5 HORVATH, Gyula (1987): Development of the Regional Management 
of the Economy in East-Central Europe 
No. 6 PALNE KOVACS, Ilona (1988): Chance of Local Independence in 
Hungary 
No. 7 FARAGO, Laszlo — HRUBI, Laszlo (1988): Development Possibilities 
of Backward Areas in Hungary 
No. 8 SZORENYINE KUKORELLI, hen (1990): Role of the Accessibility in 
Development and Functioning of Settlements 
No. 9 ENYEDI, GyOrgy (1990): New Basis for Regional and Urban Policies in 
East-Central Europe 
No. 10 RECHNITZER, Janos (1990): Regional Spread of Computer Technol-
ogy in Hungary 
No. 11 SIKOS T., Tamas (1992): Types of Social Infrastructure in Hungary 
No. 12 HORVATH, Gyula — HRUBI, Laszlo (1992): Restructuring and Re-
gional Policy in Hungary 

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