MODERN TRENDS IN ROAD NETWORK DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL AREAS

Activities aimed at the improvement of instruments of rural development have been undertaken in Europe for many years. Those focusing on the changing the ownership structure, implemented through the traditional process of land consolidation, are gradually replaced by multifunctional activities for rural development, considering elements of environmental protection, agricultural landscape management, and solutions concerning soil and water protection. Such development must be accompanied by the application of new pro-ecological design and material-technological solutions regarding the construction of rural roads. The roads should be designed with possibly the fullest consideration of a rich resource of data on a given area, performance of many spatial analyses, and decision making in the scope of selection of the most appropriate solutions acceptable to all stakeholders (e.g. residents, farmers, local authorities, entrepreneurs, and investors). The article presents the concept of a model solution of the development of the rural road network based on the multiple-criteria model of spatial analyses with the application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process method. The research process was conducted in the geographic information systems environment. The importance of the proposed methodology was verified in actual conditions based on the example of the Harta village located in the southern part of Poland. The obtained results suggest that the process of development of rural roads with the application of the multiple-criteria model of spatial analyses is more accurate, more efficient than the traditional design method, and considers the requirements of the sustainable development of rural areas. Moreover, it permits presentation of solutions in the form of maps to the local community, almost in real time, and making excellent decisions with its active participation.