Functionality of the connections of forest roads with public and other internal roads

The forestry communication system is included in larger transport areas through forest roads connections mainly with public roads, but also with internal ones. The possibility of realization of these connections and defining their technical parameters is very important, as it concerns the cooperation of various property owners as well as interference of the State Forest units into other land (road lane). The aim of the research was to analyse the exits, i.e. connections of forest roads with public or other internal roads, necessary to ensure the functioning of the communication system of the forest district. We investigated existing as well as the planned to be built exits. The research was carried out based on the developed information sheet regarding the scale and scope of issues related to the operation of the exits. We received back 412 information sheets and analysed the data according to the category of the road and the regional directorates of the State Forests (RDSFs). The total number of functioning exits the State Forests equals 108,239. The exits number varies from 2505 in RDSF Piła to 12,341 in RDSF Olsztyn and depends on the number of forest districts and their area, which is confirmed by the high number of exits in RDSF Bialystok, Szczecin and Wroclaw (tab. 1). The highest number of exits (53,455) was found for junctions with commune roads, and then district roads (31,190). A large number of exits (8111) was recorded for roads that do not have the status of a public road. More than a half of the surveyed forest districts (262) demonstrated the need to build 9072 new exits from various road categories, indicating primarily exits from communal roads and district roads (tab. 2). No need of building the exits to national roads was exhibited by 320 forest districts, and by 253 units for regional, 183 for district and 211 for communal roads