How to establish and operate cross-border public transport in a peripheral rural area? The example of the central and southern section of the border between Austria and Hungary

Based on the Interreg Central Europe Territorial cooperation Programme’s CONNECT2CE project the current paper analyses the existing passenger traffic flow across the border which is among the TOP10 busiest border section of the EU. It provides an overview of the main socio-economic characteristic of the peripheral border area and identifies the factors which are leading to the continuous growth of cross-border traffic. Based on previous research and travel surveys it collects the past service attempts offered to tap the growing cross-border travel demand. It also presents the most recent passenger counts and relational (Origin-Destination O-D) ticketing statistic in order to get precise knowledge about the usage level of the existing service which helps to understand the rapidly changing mobility patterns and spatial structure. Finally, it takes into account the existing EU conform legal and organisational challenges for offering competitive public transport services on a cross-border route and proposes two new solutions as a contribution to achieve a sustainable modal shift towards public transport in the peripheral border area.