TAXONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT DEVELOPMENT IN CHOSEN EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES – A SPATIAL APPROACH

Abstract

Transport is considered as the basis of socio-economic development in the European Union countries. As every activity it generates positive and negative external effects for the environment, society and economy. Therefore, all activities in this area should be balanced in order not to destabilize the economy of particular countries, help society and protect the natural environment. Hence, there is a need for the correct diagnosis of sustainable transport development in particular European Union countries. The main aim of the paper is to attempt the assessment of sustainable transport development level in European Union countries and identify the underdeveloped spatial areas as the base of implementation for the support policy. In the scope of dealing with research problem, both classic and order, chosen multivariate statistical measures were implemented into the research process. Moreover, the order taxonomic method with Weber median were introduced which allowed to take into account interactions (directly unobservable relationships) in the set of diagnostic variables and made the analysis immune to skewness of particular diagnostic variables.