The Reconstruction of Travel-Accessibility
Authors: Hůrský Josef 
Published: February 2024

This paper tries to ascertain the possibilities of retrospective cartographical presentation of the accessibility of travel. The author demonstrates the problem of development of passenger traffic in Bohemia. He bases his study on the concept of accessibility in geographical sense and distinguishes accessibility of stations (stages) and accessibility of the centre of the country. This central-accessibility as the theory of the isochronal maps had been worked out in details earlier and more thoroughly (Riedel 1910) than the common accessibility. The further in the past the more necessary is the application of more simple method of presentation. In Bohemia, where the posts have been founded in 1527, it is possible to use for the period before 1600 only hypothetical fashions of presentation, the paraisochrons. The speed of the coaches, used in regulary post traffic, exceeded only rarely in daily average, the speed of the walking, so that up to 1750 is reasonable to present only accessibility in terms of postal horseback travel. Map 1 represents the state in 1697, both the location of the postal stations, the distance of which is, in addition to terrain, the most important element in the reconstruction of travel speeds, and the probable number of the routes and finally the daily isochrons. (A = official postal stations, B = temporary postal stations, yet really onwards in traffic; - a = 8-9, b = 4, c = 2-3 courses monthly.) The simplest method of presentation of the degree of accessibility is cartographical sign-method used in two further maps (Bohemian towns). Map 2 shows the situation in 1720 and 3 in 1754, that is soon after putting the posts under the state's control, after the abolition of feudal post. The oldest verified source by help of which the speeds of the passenger traffic can be calculated, are the regulations of 1779 (see map 4). The counterparts of the maps presenting the development of the central accessibility by means of isochrons, already drawn by Schjerning, are the maps of the development of the common accessibility. Map 5 shows their application for Bohemia during the time from 1720-1779. The areas illustrating the improvement or the deterioration can be (planimetrically measured) used for statistic comparing. An important turning-point, from which the coach passenger traffic gained the upper hand over the postal horseback traffic, is the time around 1750, when the first mail stagecoaches ("diligences") were introduced in Bohemia. But their average speeds were relatively low, and so they changed only little the circular scheme presenting the walking accessibility. The drawing of isochrons before 1779 is also still problematical, partly because the differentiation between the coach and riding routes was unsufficient. The first detailed and uniform presentation of the routes is that of Crusius's Postal and Topographical Lexicon of 1799, which shows for Bohemia about 15 000 settlements and localities. Map 7 presents from the facts given in this lexicon the network of passenger traffic, together with its frequency. But the isochrons could be drawn only with the metropolis of the late empire, Vienna, as the centre, and also only for half-days. The next map takes material also from this lexicon, namely for the detailed presentation of the common accessibility of small provincial settlements (Northwestern Bohemia, the ancient county of Litoměřice). The oldest published sample of a reconstructed isochronal map is the Schjerning's map of Brandenburg for 1819. For comparision Bohemia is presented in the same manner. Map 8 shows the different state of "chausseé roads" of both lands. Map 9 is neither real isochronal maps - they are still approximately reconstructed isochrons. A sample of the oldest real isochrons (for 1827) brings a paper (from the same author) in this journal (vol. 1958) and an other, which tries possibilities to project real maps of accessibility for 1850 will appear thereupon.