Welcome

I'm Daniel Štraub, a social and transport geographer at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Jagiellonian University in Kraków. I hold a PhD 🎓 in Socio-economic Geography and Spatial Planning from the same university.

My research asks a single question in different settings: who can reach what, and on what terms. I have spent most of my career studying fare-free public transport in Poland and Czechia, and I now lead a project on spatial access to addiction treatment provision across Poland.

What I work on

Fare-free public transport — my first major research theme and the subject of my doctoral work. Across a decade I charted where Polish and Czech municipalities abolish fares, what drives them to do so, how activists push the idea into public debate, and whom fare-free systems actually reach. The grant-funded phase is finished; I still publish on the topic.

Geographies of Recovery — my current project, funded by the National Science Centre, Poland. Research on drug demand in Central and Eastern Europe is well developed; the supply side is not. The project maps where addiction treatment facilities are located across Poland, who can reach them, and how national policy shapes that distribution. It runs from October 2026 over three years.

Other research themes — shared mobility and e-scooter sharing, food waste and food-sharing platforms, and conflicts over transport policy in European cities. The research page collects these themes together with my full list of publications.

Selected publications

Štraub, D., & Hess, D. B. (2025). Re-examining fare-free public transport for greater inclusivity. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 33, Article 101558. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2025.101558

Štraub, D., Kębłowski, W., & Maciejewska, M. (2023). From Bełchatów to Żory: Charting Poland's geography of fare-free public transport programmes. Journal of Transport Geography, 111, Article 103650. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2023.103650

Štraub, D. (2023). On the road to a fare-free public transport policy: A case study of the Wrocław Anarchist Federation. Transport Geography Papers of Polish Geographical Society, 26(1), 40–51. https://doi.org/10.4467/2543859XPKG.23.003.17400

The complete list is on the research page.