Paper presented at the conference: „Regional Socio-Economic Processes in Central and Eastern Europe – 20 Years in Transition and 2 Years in Global Economic Crisis”organized as a Visegrad Small Grant project by the Geographical Research Institute of Hungarian Academy of Sciences (GRI HAS), Budapest 4 th -5 th April 2011 Public transportation and spatial accessibility in rural areas of Polish, Czech and Slovakian Carpathian Mountains ROBERT GUZIK Keywords: accessibility, rural areas, spatial equity, public transport, transport deregulation Introduction In the contemporary globalized, hyper-mobile world, one of the most important narrations in discourse on development of rural and peripheral areas is their accessibility (FARRINGTON, J. 2007). An adequate access to spatially and temporally dispersed resources and opportunities is an important problem, undermining people’s life chances (this refers, in particular, to the access to education and to health care); it is also a prospect for economic growth and prosperity of regions and localities (MOSELEY, M. 1979). More and more often, the idea of accessibility becomes a part of political agenda, settled within the social justice and social inclusion discourse (KEELING, D. 2009). It goes so as because the accessibility counts more for people underprivileged in terms of private car motorization, namely the poor, the school-age children, elderly and disabled persons (CASS, N. et al. 2005). In the mountain and highland areas, another group which may depend on public-transportation based accessibility are the tourists, especially in the regions where the greater environmental sustainability connected with promotion of public transportation (instead of private cars) is emphasized. The aim of this study was to examine the differentiation in spatial accessibility of rural mountain and highland areas to towns performing functions of service centers (both of lower and middle level in settlement hierarchy) by the means of public transportation. Indices of accessibility in terms of time (time distances derived from timetables of public transport operators), opportunity and convenience (scheduled frequency of bus/ train services) were calculated for each village within 9 counties (NUTS 4) of Polish, Slovakian and Czech Carpathians. The selection of the studied regions takes into account the representation of different types of mountain environment, peripherality, population density, economic functions, GDP level and the state belonging (Poland/ Czech Republic/ Slovakia) as the contributory factors, accounting for accessibility. Although accessibility is calculated for villages, it also has to be interpreted in terms of urban- rural links, determining the development prospect of the whole region (much better in areas with strong and dense links). This relation is an example of the cumulative causation model, as because better market potential and economic development enhances, in turn, better accessibility. An additional purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of deregulation of public transportation and differences between the studied post-socialist countries.