Social and Economic Efficiency of Operation Dependent and Independent Traction in Rail Freight

Continual increase of transport mobility has caused a lot of environmental and community problems. Although the railway transport is considered to be the most environmentally friendly type of transport, its share on the EU transport market was reduced. In comparison with 2000, the share of the rail freight transport within modes of transport used in EU decreased in 2012 by 1.3%. Using electric traction leads to the external costs in the freight rail transport 90% lower compared to the road transport. The contribution deals with social costs incurred in the course of operation of the freight rail transport. Social costs include costs borne by the manager of the infrastructure, costs borne by the operators of the freight rail transport and external costs that are passed on to the whole company. The contribution provides with the results of the survey focused on the comparison of social costs incurred by the use of dependent and independent traction.