An analysis of European intercity bus and rail travel network and impedance

Abstract

Bus and rail are prominent modes of public transport in Europe for intercity travel. Their modal networks differ substantially in speed, structure and geographic reach, yet are rarely compared systematically at the continental scale. This study constructs a harmonised, service-level intercity network for 134 cities across 30 European countries using timetable data from major intercity rail and coach operators. Generalised travel time and population-weighted accessibility are computed across city pairs, modes and transfer levels. Results show that rail is considerably faster but spatially concentrated in western and central Europe, while bus provides broader coverage across peripheral regions, including the Balkans, Baltics and Iberian cross-border corridors. Rail accessibility saturates around 15 hours of travel time while bus saturates much later at 40 hours. Intermodal transfers generally fare between bus-only and rail-only connections but outperform them in accessibility for more than two transfers, highlighting the critical role of cross-modal coordination in pan-European connectivity.