Multimodal freight transport in cities is a complex, valid, and vitally important problem. It is more seldom underlined in scientific studies and included in cities’ strategies that devote more attention to passenger transport than freight transport. The increased utilization of multimodal transport matches current transport policy and at the same time, it is one of the most important challenges put before cities striving to achieve sustainable development. In this case, the paper embarks upon the problem of relations between multimodal transport development and the sustainable development of the cities. The objective of the paper is an analysis of the impact of the selected city of the Upper Silesian metropolis on the development of multimodal freight transport and an assessment of the impact of the development of multimodal transport on the sustainable development of the cities of the Upper Silesian metropolis. The authors developed three research questions in order to implement the adopted objective. The process of looking for the answer included four stages. Within the first and second stages, the literature studies and experts’ research allowed for identifying key factors of the multimodal transport development that a city may have an impact on. In the third stage, the research was two-fold and was based on a questionnaire and scenario analysis. Due to the individual character of each of the cities, scenarios were developed for Katowice, being the main economic center of Upper Silesian and Zagłębie Metropolis. As a result of the research, factors have been identified that must be included in a strategy of a city that strives for sustainable development. The last stage of the research focused on the initial concept of the multimodal transport development impact assessment on sustainable development of the cities. Conclusions developed at individual stages allowed for answering the research questions.

As the demand for transport is growing, more and more attention is being paid to its quality aspects. These include, among other things, efficiency, safety, and a continuous effort to reduce external costs. That is why the transport policies of the EU countries and individual regions are increasingly addressing the issue of sustainable transport development. Multimodal transport, which is seen as a key element to effectively counterbalance the dominant role of vehicle transport in the economic progress of the European Community, plays an important role in these programmes. For consistency and continuity of freight flows, cooperation between neighbouring countries and regions is essential. The future of multimodal freight transport within the cross-border area of Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia is not as evident as the transport policies imply. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to identify a set of factors determining the development of multimodal transport within the cross-border area of TRITIA (The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation of the four regional governments of Moravian-Silesian Region (CZ), Opole Voivodeship (PL), Silesian Voivodeship (PL) and Žilina Self-governing Region (SK)) and to develop four scenarios, the execution of which in the 2030 perspective depends on the implementation of cross-border infrastructure and organisational projects and the increasing level of cooperation in the field of multimodal transport. The article contains the methodology for developing scenarios of multimodal freight transport development. The research showed that initiating activities targeted at the development of multimodal transport within the cross-border area requires the involvement of all participants in the process, i.e., all countries (Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia), along with many different stakeholders. The future development of multimodal transport as provided for in the scenarios is not linearly correlated with the increase in cooperation and the number of implemented infrastructure and organisational projects. It is vital for future research to define the role of stakeholders both in terms of cooperation and collaboration development.

The basis for developing logistics solutions in cities is to know the requirements and expectations of current and potential transport users and for decision makers to strive to meet them. In building an urban logistics strategy, it is therefore necessary to take into account different stakeholder groups. Building stakeholder relations should be aimed at involving them in the development of a sustainable transport policy for the city. It should be noted, however, that the importance of stakeholders in transport policy is diverse. This assumption was made in the paper, which aimed to identify the role of the various groups of urban logistics stakeholders in the sustainable movement of people. This challenge is subordinated to the methodology proposed in the paper, which combines the analysis of urban logistics stakeholders and the assignment of roles to them in the pursuit of sustainable flows of people in the city with the identification of tasks in which stakeholders characterized by a particular role should be involved. Achieving the stated goal required collaboration with experts. Research on the roles of stakeholders, as well as the tasks in which they should be involved, was conducted in Polish cities. Infrastructure managers, small mobility organisers, public safety organisations and public transport organisations turned out to be the development leaders who, as a result, were recommended to be included in most tasks by local government units of Polish cities. What deserves special attention in the results obtained, on the other hand, is the role of the unpredictable main player, which is other cities.

The research on the multimodal transport development within the cross-border area is a result of identified gaps in the system solutions and cooperation between stakeholders of three countries: Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Freight transport is an especially complex problem. It is an area that is not comprehensively recognized in the context of cross-border cooperation. The results of the research presented in this paper are the continuation of analyses performed within the scope of the international project framework TRANS TRITIA. At the moment, transport policy assumes the struggle for the utilization of multimodality within freight transport. This is justified by the need to reduce external transport costs. At the same time, this necessitates actions of a technical, organizational, and legislation nature as well as cooperation between stakeholders. The multimodal transport ecosystem is a vision of the transport within cross-border areas that assumes the increase in the flow dynamics within the multimodal transport. The main goal of this paper was the stakeholders’ analysis and identification of their roles in the ecosystem of multimodal freight transport within the Polish–Czech–Slovak cross-border area. The conceptualization of the multimodal freight transport ecosystem was essential to achieving the objective. To achieve the objective, a stakeholder analysis has been performed based on expert research. As a result of the research, organizational projects have been proposed to strengthen the idea of the coevolution of the multimodal transport ecosystem. The key conclusion from the performed research is the declaration that a holistic view of the multimodal transport ecosystem necessitates the appointment of a coordinator who will synchronize knowledge, business, and innovation ecosystems.

The growing population of cities means that they face many new challenges in improving their economic, social and environmental efficiency. These themes are relevant to the increasingly popular worldwide concept of smart cities. A smart city is a city that is friendly to people and the environment, in which people live better, safer, and healthier. From the point of view of management sciences, they are a result of creative development and the implementation of various solutions that should involve various stakeholders. The quality of life of city residents is largely influenced by logistics solutions, including the movement of both people and cargo in the city. This issue is directly relevant to the aim of this article, which is to try to determine the degree of cooperation between the city and city logistics stakeholders in the context of identifying gaps in the inclusion of logistics areas in the strategies of Polish cities. Both the role of stakeholders in actively shaping city strategies and the inclusion of logistics aspects in strategies are areas discussed in recent years in the literature in the context of smart cities. Our approach combines these two areas by pointing to their importance in the development of cities towards smart cities. In our stakeholder research, we focus on city logistics stakeholders, as the identified gaps in strategies relate only to logistics aspects. We conduct our research in Polish cities. In assessing the cooperation of Polish cities with their stakeholders and identifying gaps in the inclusion of logistic aspects in the strategies, we used an original questionnaire that allowed us to survey 280 Polish cities. To analyse the stakeholders we used statistics. To analyse the questionnaires, we used descriptive statistics, while gaps were identified by relating the results to the developed template. Both the problem of gaps and the problem of stakeholders were also considered on a voivodeship scale. The research results indicated a low level of cooperation between local authorities and key city logistics stakeholders. Moreover, logistic aspects were found to be insufficiently included in the city strategies of Polish cities (a high level of gaps was identified for most of the examined areas). This indicates the low awareness of local authorities regarding the shaping of cities’ logistics systems and a lack of activity in this area. The results provide city managers with information on how to develop cooperation with stakeholders and which logistic areas to include in the formulated strategies. Undertaking these actions is a condition for the development of Polish cities towards the “smart city” concept.