Overview
Regionalisation of Slovenia is one of the basic instruments for the implementation of sustainable regional development that is in accordance with environment and natural resources. This process could also help to encourage regional co-operation and to preserve the identity of Slovenian regions.
Regionalisation of Slovenia will provoke changes also in the state administration, namely in the field of transport policy. Adoption of regions in Slovenia will demand modelling of competences of future regions and also of their financial resources. The number of adopted regions will also have influence on the shares of roads in particular regions and afterwards also on their management.
The objectives of the project are as follows:
- Definition of the road network competences which will have to remain under state jurisdiction and of competences, which could be transferred to regions. For the latter also the definition of the process how these competences will be gradually transferred to regions.
- Setting up of different possible senarios of Slovenia regionalisation, namely: Slovenia will be one region as a whole country; or, in Slovenia three, eight, twelve or fourteen regions will be established.
- Elaboration and financial evaluation of the transfer of competences for different possible numbers of regions as well as estimation of costs of the transfer of competences and calculation of economic viability.
- Elaboration of new categorisation of state roads in Slovenia, depending on the number of regions in Slovenia.
The methodology involved detailed analysis of the present road management and the possible creation of 3, 8, 12 or 14 regions in Slovenia. As a part of this analysis, those regional roads that could be classified in higher categories according to the spatial development strategy of Slovenia, were defined.
Results
This study analysed in detail the present road management and the possible creation of 3, 8, 12 or 14 regions in Slovenia. As a part of this analysis, those regional roads that could be classified in higher categories according to the spatial development strategy of Slovenia, have been defined.
The basic criteria for defining those parts of the state road network that could be transferred to regions were as follows:
- whether a certain road connects two neighbouring regions;
- traffic volume on this road; and,
- and if a certain road is connected to roads of the same or higher category.
On the basis of the aforementioned criteria it was determined that approximately 3 700 to 4 000 kilometres of state roads could be transferred to regions.
Under the jurisdiction of DRSC (Directorate for Roads of the Republic Slovenia) would remain 1 800 to 2 150 kilometres of roads (30% to 36% of the existing state road network).
There are no direct results for the Efficiency theme, although the number of regions chosen and the way in which roads are allocated to regional authorities or rest with the State, would clearly have efficiency implications on the management of the road network and efficiency is therefore a key deciding factor.
Policy implications
The main purpose of this study was to define different possible alternative numbers of regions in Slovenia as well as elaboration of consequences of this process for the state road network. More detailed implementation of competences, a list of the state road network that could be transferred to regions, categorisation of the transferred roads and categorisation of all other roads that would remain under the jurisdiction of the DRSC, can be done only after final adoption of the number of regions in Slovenia.