As the demand for transport is growing, more and more attention is being paid to its quality aspects. These include, among other things, efficiency, safety, and a continuous effort to reduce external costs. That is why the transport policies of the EU countries and individual regions are increasingly addressing the issue of sustainable transport development. Multimodal transport, which is seen as a key element to effectively counterbalance the dominant role of vehicle transport in the economic progress of the European Community, plays an important role in these programmes. For consistency and continuity of freight flows, cooperation between neighbouring countries and regions is essential. The future of multimodal freight transport within the cross-border area of Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia is not as evident as the transport policies imply. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to identify a set of factors determining the development of multimodal transport within the cross-border area of TRITIA (The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation of the four regional governments of Moravian-Silesian Region (CZ), Opole Voivodeship (PL), Silesian Voivodeship (PL) and Žilina Self-governing Region (SK)) and to develop four scenarios, the execution of which in the 2030 perspective depends on the implementation of cross-border infrastructure and organisational projects and the increasing level of cooperation in the field of multimodal transport. The article contains the methodology for developing scenarios of multimodal freight transport development. The research showed that initiating activities targeted at the development of multimodal transport within the cross-border area requires the involvement of all participants in the process, i.e., all countries (Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia), along with many different stakeholders. The future development of multimodal transport as provided for in the scenarios is not linearly correlated with the increase in cooperation and the number of implemented infrastructure and organisational projects. It is vital for future research to define the role of stakeholders both in terms of cooperation and collaboration development.

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The research on the multimodal transport development within the cross-border area is a result of identified gaps in the system solutions and cooperation between stakeholders of three countries: Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Freight transport is an especially complex problem. It is an area that is not comprehensively recognized in the context of cross-border cooperation. The results of the research presented in this paper are the continuation of analyses performed within the scope of the international project framework TRANS TRITIA. At the moment, transport policy assumes the struggle for the utilization of multimodality within freight transport. This is justified by the need to reduce external transport costs. At the same time, this necessitates actions of a technical, organizational, and legislation nature as well as cooperation between stakeholders. The multimodal transport ecosystem is a vision of the transport within cross-border areas that assumes the increase in the flow dynamics within the multimodal transport. The main goal of this paper was the stakeholders’ analysis and identification of their roles in the ecosystem of multimodal freight transport within the Polish–Czech–Slovak cross-border area. The conceptualization of the multimodal freight transport ecosystem was essential to achieving the objective. To achieve the objective, a stakeholder analysis has been performed based on expert research. As a result of the research, organizational projects have been proposed to strengthen the idea of the coevolution of the multimodal transport ecosystem. The key conclusion from the performed research is the declaration that a holistic view of the multimodal transport ecosystem necessitates the appointment of a coordinator who will synchronize knowledge, business, and innovation ecosystems.

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Multimodal freight transport in cities is a complex, valid, and vitally important problem. It is more seldom underlined in scientific studies and included in cities’ strategies that devote more attention to passenger transport than freight transport. The increased utilization of multimodal transport matches current transport policy and at the same time, it is one of the most important challenges put before cities striving to achieve sustainable development. In this case, the paper embarks upon the problem of relations between multimodal transport development and the sustainable development of the cities. The objective of the paper is an analysis of the impact of the selected city of the Upper Silesian metropolis on the development of multimodal freight transport and an assessment of the impact of the development of multimodal transport on the sustainable development of the cities of the Upper Silesian metropolis. The authors developed three research questions in order to implement the adopted objective. The process of looking for the answer included four stages. Within the first and second stages, the literature studies and experts’ research allowed for identifying key factors of the multimodal transport development that a city may have an impact on. In the third stage, the research was two-fold and was based on a questionnaire and scenario analysis. Due to the individual character of each of the cities, scenarios were developed for Katowice, being the main economic center of Upper Silesian and Zagłębie Metropolis. As a result of the research, factors have been identified that must be included in a strategy of a city that strives for sustainable development. The last stage of the research focused on the initial concept of the multimodal transport development impact assessment on sustainable development of the cities. Conclusions developed at individual stages allowed for answering the research questions.

Streszczenie: Współczesne przedsiębiorstwa, niezależnie od branży, poszukują sposobów bycia konkurencyjnymi na rynku. Jednym z rozwiązań jest dążenie do innowacyjności, w której upatruje się potencjalnych szans na rozwój przedsiębiorstwa, wzrost udziału w rynku i dostosowanie do zmieniających się, wysokich wymagań klientów. W te trendy wpisują się także przedsiębiorstwa branży TSL. W literaturze wiele mówi się ogólnie o innowacyjności czy też o rozwoju branży TSL. Natomiast niewiele jest opracowań odnoszących się wprost do poziomu innowacyjności tej gałęzi, szczególnie w ujęciu danych liczbowych. Stąd w artykule podjęto rozważania odnoszące się do problemu innowacyjności branży TSL oraz na podstawie danych GUS podjęto próbę zestawienia i ukazania stopnia innowacyjności przedsiębiorstw reprezentujących sekcję H klasyfikacji PKD, któ-re można przypisać do branży TSL. WprowadzenieBardzo popularne obecnie określenie "gospodarka oparta na wiedzy" wskazuje na coraz większą zależność przedsiębiorstwa od wiedzy, informacji, umiejętności oraz dostępu do nich. Przyjmuje się, iż to właśnie w gospodarce opartej na wiedzy innowacje są postrzegane jako czynnik o kluczowym znaczeniu zarówno na poziomie makro-, jak i mikroekonomicznym. Na poziomie makroekonomicznym odnosi się je do wzrostu gospodarczego kraju i rozwoju handlu międzynarodowe-go, natomiast na poziomie mikroekonomicznym działania B+R postrzegane są jako czynnik zwiększający zdolność firmy do przyswajania i wykorzystywania owej wiedzy. W konsekwencji innowacje wpływają na uzyskiwany poziom konkurencyjności na rynku (Podręcznik Oslo 1997).Obecnie coraz częściej wspomina się, iż firmy potrafiące lepiej wykorzystać innowacje do celów biznesowych będą mogły pełniej dostosowywać się do konkurencyjnego rynku. Zwrócenie uwagi przez przedsiębiorstwa na problem innowacyjności jest szczególnie ważne, jeśli uwzględni się opracowywane przez UE raporty. Niestety w odniesieniu do Polski są one niepokojące -raport wydany pod auspicjami UE pozycjonuje Polskę jako kraj o niskim poziomie innowacyjności. Wynik ten został potwierdzony przez globalny Innovation Index 2012, gdzie Polska również została nisko sklasyfikowana. W innym rankingu Boston Consulting Group, który oceniał 50 najbardziej innowacyjnych przedsiębiorstw, nie ma żadne-go polskiego podmiotu gospodarczego (Antonowicz 2014).

Innovation is regarded as one of the main sources of competitive advantage in the market. However, in spite of these tendencies, Polish companies are still considered to be too little innovative for other European countries or for the world. Companies in the TSL industry (transport-forwardinglogistic) are also in the trend. About their innovativeness speaks little, but at the same time available data show that the industry is not very innovative. One approach that is mentioned as a solution that can help reduce the barriers to innovation in the TSL industry is to work with other companies. This cooperation can take different forms. Cluster structures are also mentioned. Clusters include, inter alia, the possibilities of knowledge transfer, technology transfer, achieving synergy effect and, as a consequence, the joint development of innovation. Referring to the presented problem of innovation, its low level, especially considering the TSL industry and cooperation aimed at creating new solutions as the aim of the article, is to show the role of clusters as a chosen form of cooperation between enterprises in creating innovations in the TSL industry.

The basis for developing logistics solutions in cities is to know the requirements and expectations of current and potential transport users and for decision makers to strive to meet them. In building an urban logistics strategy, it is therefore necessary to take into account different stakeholder groups. Building stakeholder relations should be aimed at involving them in the development of a sustainable transport policy for the city. It should be noted, however, that the importance of stakeholders in transport policy is diverse. This assumption was made in the paper, which aimed to identify the role of the various groups of urban logistics stakeholders in the sustainable movement of people. This challenge is subordinated to the methodology proposed in the paper, which combines the analysis of urban logistics stakeholders and the assignment of roles to them in the pursuit of sustainable flows of people in the city with the identification of tasks in which stakeholders characterized by a particular role should be involved. Achieving the stated goal required collaboration with experts. Research on the roles of stakeholders, as well as the tasks in which they should be involved, was conducted in Polish cities. Infrastructure managers, small mobility organisers, public safety organisations and public transport organisations turned out to be the development leaders who, as a result, were recommended to be included in most tasks by local government units of Polish cities. What deserves special attention in the results obtained, on the other hand, is the role of the unpredictable main player, which is other cities.