Globalization and the development of logistics infrastructure of the freight transport by road

Development of countries and regions is possible thanks to their adequate infrastructure. The globalization of economic processes has contributed to the increase in the intensity of the movement of all kinds of goods, which is possible due to the transport infrastructure. Transport is one of the functional systems of logistics, which covers all activities consisting in the movement of material goods, people and information, in time and space, with appropriate technical equipment. Thus, it constitutes an element of the technical infrastructure of logistics. Road transport is the main branch of Polish transport both in terms of the mass of and the revenues from the freight. Therefore the authors have conducted an in-depth study of the logistics infrastructure of the freight transport by road, not only for Poland, but also for other European countries. The purpose of this article is to analyze the concentration of the elements of the road transport infrastructure and to examine the competitiveness of companies providing road transport services in selected European countries in the years 2001-2011, and to examine the road network saturation. The following indices were used in the analysis: Herfindahl-Hirschman concentration index, location quotient, weighted average rate of road network density and Engel's road network density index. The Herfindahl-Hirschman index measures the concentration and determines the estimated level of concentration in a given industry and the level of competitiveness on a given market. The location quotient determines the level of the analyzed variable in relation to the so-called reference variable and allows one to determine whether the analyzed area has a higher level of the variable in a given section, compared to the average for the reference area, whether there is a potential shortage of certain activities in the examined area, or whether the level of a feature in a given area is sufficient. Weighted average rate of the road network density refers to the density of the road network in relation to the area and population of a given country. The Engel's network density ratio in turn takes into account, apart from the area and population, the size of the transported goods. The performed analyses provide information on the uniformity of equipment in the road transport infrastructure of the examined countries and show similarities and differences in the road network saturation. The applied measures allow one to compare the analyzed countries in terms of the discussed variables, and in particular: the total length of motorways (kilometers), annual road freight transport (thousands of tonnes), length of e-roads (kilometers) length of other roads (kilometers), number of goods road transport companies.