Since PolskiBus is often brought up as a reason why railways are losing clients in Poland, I decided to investigate how competetive long distance trains and PolskiBus are. To do this, I used the following map to check which are the largest cities in Poland, and compared the speed and price of rail travel (TLK from PKP Intercity or InterRegio from Przewozy Regionalny) against the speed and price of PolskiBus travel.
The bus route price was calculated in the PolskiBus website, buying to the next day around 6-10 am, a common scenario. Higher than average values were skipped, but undesirables times (such as 5 am) too, obtaining usually the value most common among desirable travel times.
The rail price is just a guess from the TLK price table. In the PKP Intercity website it takes a long time to switch between routes, so I had no time to get all the real prices, but this should give an estimate. The InterRegio has smaller prices than TLK and also second, third and fourth persons in a group pay half, but on the other hand InterRegio has so many less trains than TLK that it is really a small player, and PKP Intercity is by far the largest player in Poland in long distance rail.
The bus time is from PolskiBus website and the rail time is from an average of the TLKs in the route ignoring those that are slower than average (due to going via a longer route for example).
The distance is not a direct line distance, but instead it is the road distance calculated in this website: http://www.dystans.org/ I suppose that the rail distance will be similar, but of course it is not perfect.
Conclusions
First of all I was really disappointed at the PolskiBus price. Everyone keeps saying that you can travel for 1 zł (actually 2zł) everywhere with PolskiBus, as if you don't need to think, just use it to go everywhere and it will be fast and cost 2 zł. Well, even if buying months before, I couldn't find any ticket for 2zł. The tickets were priced in average 20zł cheaper than TLK, and in a group with 2 to 4 persons it would cost the same as an InterRegio ticket. The only exception is in the A4 axis: Wrocław-Katowice-Kraków-Rzeszów. In this axis PolskiBus has really cheap tickets. I suppose that the reason is that this axis has a lot of competition from other bus companies, so PolskiBus is doing dumping to try to kill them. But many routes were neither fast no cheap, for example 51zł and 9 hours for Katowice-Gdańsk!
Second, we can see that PolskiBus wasn't faster, it the travel time with PolskiBus and TLK on average was the same, although some sections are very slow for rail and very fast for buses like the A4 axis in the south, in many other sections trains are faster because there are no highways yet there, and in some like Poznań-Warszawa, even if there are highways, the trains are still faster because the line is in a very good state.
On the other hand the PO government plans for huge highway construction and very small railway improvements in the European Unions perspective 2014-2020 will clearly give buses an advantage in the decade to come, and shows the pro-road stance of the polish government which is against the European Union policy of modal shift towards railways. Just compare the huge highway building program, which spares no expense and will drown Poland under hundreds of billions of debt with the tiny railway program:
Yellow, Red and Blue sections will be finished by 2020 in the map bellow:
Railway investments in 2014-2020:
One more thing which I concluded is that the bulk of the polish long distance rail is TLK trains, InterRegio and EIC trains serve only a fraction of the main destinations, and since TLK is dependent on a ever increasing governmental subsidy and an ever decreasing amount of passengers, it's pretty fair to say that the future of long distance rail in Poland is at the very least highly insecure. With the most popular political party (PO) being staunchly anti-rail, I'm pretty sure that service will greatly decrease in the next 10 years.
The bus route price was calculated in the PolskiBus website, buying to the next day around 6-10 am, a common scenario. Higher than average values were skipped, but undesirables times (such as 5 am) too, obtaining usually the value most common among desirable travel times.
The rail price is just a guess from the TLK price table. In the PKP Intercity website it takes a long time to switch between routes, so I had no time to get all the real prices, but this should give an estimate. The InterRegio has smaller prices than TLK and also second, third and fourth persons in a group pay half, but on the other hand InterRegio has so many less trains than TLK that it is really a small player, and PKP Intercity is by far the largest player in Poland in long distance rail.
The bus time is from PolskiBus website and the rail time is from an average of the TLKs in the route ignoring those that are slower than average (due to going via a longer route for example).
The distance is not a direct line distance, but instead it is the road distance calculated in this website: http://www.dystans.org/ I suppose that the rail distance will be similar, but of course it is not perfect.
| Route | km | Rail - Time | Rail - Price | Rail – Speed | Bus - Time | Bus - Price | Bus – Speed | Road Plans | Rail Plans | Amount |
| Wrocław-Katowice | 180 | 02:50 | 39 | 63,53 | 02:20 | 16 zł | 77,14 | Highway A4 | Halfway via 160, rest is slow and under refit to 100/120 | TLK: 7 IR: 2 EIC: 2 PB: 13 |
| Wrocław-Kraków | 270 | 05:00 | 50 | 54 | 03:10 | 16 zł | 85,26 | Highway A4 | Very slow section Katowice-Kraków, construction finished by 2017(?) | TLK: 5 IR: 1 PB: 20 |
| Wrocław-Poznań | 150 | 02:50 | 42 | 52,94 | 03:20 | 26 zł | 45 | Construction finished by 2020 | Modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2020 | TLK: 10 EIC: 2 PB: 3 |
| Warszawa-Wrocław | 360 | 06:10 | 65 | 58,38 | 05:50 | 36 zł | 61,71 | Construction finished by 2015 | Slow and no plans to improve | TLK: 3 EIC: 3 PB: 15 |
| Wrocław-Szczecin | 400 | 06:00 | 65 | 66,67 | N/A | N/A | Construction finished by 2020 | Halfway modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2020 | TLK: 3 | |
| Wrocław-Gdańsk | 460 | 07:00 | 67 | 65,71 | 08:35 | 46 zł | 53,59 | Construction finished by 2015 | Modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2015 | TLK: 4 PB: 3 |
| Wrocław-Rzeszów | 450 | 08:50 | 67 | 50,94 | 06:25 | 26 zł | 70,13 | Construction finished by 2015 | No plans | PB: 2 |
| Warszawa-Lublin | 170 | 02:20 | 44 | 72,86 | 04:00 | 24 zł | 42,5 | Construction finished by 2020 | Halfway modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2020 | PB: 5 |
| Warszawa-Radom | 100 | 02:20 | 37 | 42,86 | 01:45 | 19 zł | 57,14 | Halfway via Highway | Halfway modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2020 | PB: 6 |
| Warszawa-Kielce | 180 | 03:30 | 50 | 51,43 | 02:50 | 36 zł | 63,53 | Construction finished by 2020 | No plans | TLK: 1 PB: 10 |
| Warszawa-Białystok | 200 | 02:50 | 50 | 70,59 | 03:10 | 26 zł | 63,16 | Construction finished by 2020 | Modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2020 | TLK: 8 PB: 2 |
| Warszawa-Olsztyn | 215 | 02:50 | 50 | 75,88 | 03:10 | '21 zł | 67,89 | Construction finished by 2020 | No plans | TLK: 2 EIC: 1 PB: 4 |
| Warszawa-Gdańsk | 340 | 04:45 | 62 | 71,58 | 04:55 | '48 zł | 69,15 | Construction finished by 2020 | Modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2015 | TLK: 3 EIC: 4 PB: 15 |
| Warszawa-Katowice | 290 | 03:35 | 60 | 80,93 | 04:45 | 36 zł | 61,05 | 4-lane road DK1 + S8 | CMK, 160km/h+ | TLK p/ CMK: 1 TLK outros: 5 (4h50) InterRegio: 1 EIC: 6 PB: 4 |
| Warszawa-Kraków | 290 | 03:30 | 60 | 82,86 | 04:55 | '46 zł | 58,98 | Construction finished by 2020 | CMK, 160km/h+ | TLK: 3 (+1 slow via Radom) IR: 1 EIC: 6 PB: 10 |
| Warszawa-Poznań | 300 | 03:10 | 60 | 94,74 | 04:00 | '31 zł | 75 | Highway A2 | Modernized to 160 km/h | TLK: 5 IR: 3 EIC: 6 PB: 7 |
| Warszawa-Rzeszów | 300 | 05:40 | 60 | 52,94 | 05:15 | '21 zł | 57,14 | Construction finished by 2020 | No plans | TLK: 1 PB: 5 |
| Warszawa-Łódź | 130 | 02:15 | 40 | 57,78 | 02:15 | '23 zł | 57,78 | Highway | No plans | TLK: 14 IR: 6 PB: 19 |
| Warszawa-Bydgodzcz | 250 | 03:30 | 54 | 71,43 | 04:20 | '31 zł | 57,69 | No plans | No plans | TLK: 8 EIC: 3 PB: 3 |
| Szczecin-Gdańsk | 370 | 05:00 | 65 | 74 | N/A | N/A | N/A | No plans | No plans | TLK: 3 |
| Katowice-Kraków | 80 | 02:15 | 26 | 35,56 | 01:15 | '16 zł | 64 | Highway | Modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2017(?) | TLK: 7 IR: 1 PB: 9 |
| Katowice-Gdańsk | 550 | 09:15 | 69 | 59,46 | 09:00 | '51 zł | 61,11 | Halfway via Highway | Modernization to 160 km/h finished by 2015 | TLK: 3 PB: 6 |
| Katowice-Poznań | 370 | 05:40 | 65 | 65,29 | N/A | N/A | N/A | via Wrocław | via Wrocław | TLK: 7 |
| Katowice-Szczecin | 580 | 09:00 | 69 | 102,35 | N/A | N/A | N/A | Construction finished by 2020 | via Wrocław / Poznań | TLK: 3 |
| Katowice-Łódź | 200 | 04:00 | 50 | 50 | 03:40 | '31 zł | 54,55 | Construction of half finished by 2020 | No plans | TLK: 3 PB: 6 |
| Poznań-Łódź | 200 | 03:15 | 50 | 61,54 | 02:50 | 26 zł | 70,59 | Highway A2 | No plans | TLK: 2 PB: 4 |
| Poznań-Gdańsk | 300 | 03:35 | 60 | 83,72 | 05:05 | 36 zł | 59,02 | Construction finished by 2020 | No plans | TLK: 4 EIC: 1 PB: 3 |
| Poznań-Szczecin | 220 | 02:40 | 52 | 82,5 | N/A | N/A | N/A | Construction finished by 2015 | No plans | TLK: 7 IR: 2 |
| Łódź-Gdańsk | 340 | 05:15 | 62 | 64,76 | 05:15 | '41 zł | 64,76 | Construction finished by 2015 | No plans | TLK: 3 PB: 6 |
Conclusions
First of all I was really disappointed at the PolskiBus price. Everyone keeps saying that you can travel for 1 zł (actually 2zł) everywhere with PolskiBus, as if you don't need to think, just use it to go everywhere and it will be fast and cost 2 zł. Well, even if buying months before, I couldn't find any ticket for 2zł. The tickets were priced in average 20zł cheaper than TLK, and in a group with 2 to 4 persons it would cost the same as an InterRegio ticket. The only exception is in the A4 axis: Wrocław-Katowice-Kraków-Rzeszów. In this axis PolskiBus has really cheap tickets. I suppose that the reason is that this axis has a lot of competition from other bus companies, so PolskiBus is doing dumping to try to kill them. But many routes were neither fast no cheap, for example 51zł and 9 hours for Katowice-Gdańsk!
Second, we can see that PolskiBus wasn't faster, it the travel time with PolskiBus and TLK on average was the same, although some sections are very slow for rail and very fast for buses like the A4 axis in the south, in many other sections trains are faster because there are no highways yet there, and in some like Poznań-Warszawa, even if there are highways, the trains are still faster because the line is in a very good state.
On the other hand the PO government plans for huge highway construction and very small railway improvements in the European Unions perspective 2014-2020 will clearly give buses an advantage in the decade to come, and shows the pro-road stance of the polish government which is against the European Union policy of modal shift towards railways. Just compare the huge highway building program, which spares no expense and will drown Poland under hundreds of billions of debt with the tiny railway program:
Yellow, Red and Blue sections will be finished by 2020 in the map bellow:
Railway investments in 2014-2020:
One more thing which I concluded is that the bulk of the polish long distance rail is TLK trains, InterRegio and EIC trains serve only a fraction of the main destinations, and since TLK is dependent on a ever increasing governmental subsidy and an ever decreasing amount of passengers, it's pretty fair to say that the future of long distance rail in Poland is at the very least highly insecure. With the most popular political party (PO) being staunchly anti-rail, I'm pretty sure that service will greatly decrease in the next 10 years.
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