Accessibility is a key concept for territorial development and an essential location factor. It holds significance on various spatial scales. Even in the areas geographically distant from the European core, where accessibility is generally poor, its local differentiation may decide about development.  The VASAB Ministerial Conference in 2014 in Tallinn underlined that connectivity and accessibility in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), as well as the links between the Region and Europe’s core areas, and between the Region and other neighbouring regions are amongst the key development issues in the BSR.

A precondition for successful actions for the achievement of the territorial development objectives of VASAB is good knowledge of the situation including the recent development and possible future changes. VASAB CSPD/BSR agreed to regularly produce information about territorial evidence on territorial structures and development trends of the BSR to be distributed to national level officials, stakeholders and EUSBSR actors. The first publication in the planned series was devoted to the ‘Development of cities in the BSR’ (VASAB, 2016) based on a background study (Līviņa et al., 2016). the second topic selected for the publication series is ‘Accessibility of the Baltic Sea Region’.

Publication ‘Accessibility of the Baltic Sea Region: Past and Future Dynamics’ is based on a background study prepared by Spiekermann&Wegener Urban and Regional Research, Germany.  This publication considers relative and absolute changes to analyse accessibility dynamics both in the past and future. It discusses changes in the transport market, accessibility potential by road, rail, air, maritime accessibility and the concept of multimodal accessibility.

The publication consists of a brochure for more detailed explanation about accessibility of the BSR and leaflet with condensed information and main conclusions of the background report.

Read more about the background study and download the publications HERE.