Determination of the influence of infrastructural and economic factors on the volume of freight transport on railway lines in Poland

This article assesses the effect of factors, such as the number of sidings, the number of station holds, and the occurrence of transit traffic on the volume of freight transport on railway lines in Poland. The volume of freight transport on a railway line was expressed by the operational work done by freight trains running on this line and the transported freight mass by them. Most often the effect of factors affecting on the volume of transport is assessed by a team of experts. In this analysis, calculations of partial correlation coefficients were performed. The calculations showed that there is a clear relationship between the volume of freight transport and the number of sidings on the line and the occurrence of transit traffic. Based on the obtained partial correlation coefficients, weights corresponding to the effects of individual factors on the volume of freight transport were calculated. The use of these weights for further analysis will avoid the subjective expert assessments that have been used in this type of analysis so far.