IMPLEMENTING THE TRAM-TRAIN SYSTEM FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT, THE KEY TO AN EFFICIENT MOBILITY IN THE WESTERN DEVELOPMENT REGION AND DKMT EURO-REGION

Abstract

The world urban population growth brings challenges that concern every one of the three components of the organic growth: economic, social and ecologic (Little D., Arthur, 2014). Their development will induce the necessity to assure extremely effective mobility networks, efficiency being the first characteristic analysed in the competition between Development Regions. Western Development Region’s Center is Timisoara Municipality. The Timis county benefits from the densest railroad network in Romania 90.4 km / 1000 km2 (Maxim et al, 2007), Timisoara being the center of a rail transport system planned and developed by the Hungarian administration in the second half of the XIXth century. Political systems and interventions in the last 50 years kept retained a sustainable cross-border development that had the potential to place Timisoara not only in the Center of the Romanian Western Region and historical Banat region, but also of the entire DKMT European region. Studying the Western practice for intermodal systems and the potential of urban structures in the European Region, our study proposes the implementation of a hybrid tram-train rail transport system, connecting Timisoara to urban nuclei subordinated in a distance of maximum 60 km. Once implemented and integrated in the intermodal network, this kind of solution brings economic, social and ecologic benefits for DKMT in general and for every community apart, representing a win/win thinking for local administrations

Keywords: Euro-regionurban systemconnectivitymobilityintegrated transport systemtram-train