Poland is a transit country for the transport of freight as well as people between West Europe and the countries that were established after the fall of the former USSR. The spatial distribution of border traffic is determined by several factors, especially by geopolitical situation, development of road infrastructure ( development of the new sections of motorways and express roads in Poland) and economic situation conceming small border trade. The main objective of the present paper is to correlate the resulting changes in the volume and structure of border traffic with the currently changing geopolitical situation. In this context, the paper fits squarely into the subject-matter of political geography and into the studies of changing border functions ( cf. Kałuski 1998, Komornicki 1999). An attempt has been made to explain the shifts in the traffic flows that have occurred over the recent dozen-or-so years. For the purposes of the study, it has been assumed that as of 2010 the magnitude and distribution of traffic flows were not affected by significant disturbances of geopolitical nature. Thereby these patterns can be adopted as the base measure corresponding to socio-economic balance (factors conditioning trade exchange, movement of seasonal workers and tourism). In 2014 the situation changed significantly. Several events took place of geopolitical and macroeconomic character that could significantly influence the magnitude and directions of flows. These events were as follows: - war in Ukraine; - annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation (earlier there was a tourist movement from Poland in this direction); - Russia's embargo on some imports from EU countries. The findings presented in this paper are the result of research carried out within the framework of the project entitled "Monitoring chan ges in traffic-generating potentials and determinant factors underpinning the distribution of traffic on the road network in road freight transport in Poland over 2005-2015 period". The project was financed with the funds from the Polish National Science Center on the basis of the decision no. 2014/13/B/HS4/03351. In the study, we made use of the data concerning the cross-border traffic ( collected by the Polish Border Guard), as well as of the selected results derived from the General Traffic Measurement as of 2005 and 2010. The analysis allowed us to draw several general conclusions that are both of substantive and applicable nature. It has been revealed that freight traffic is affected by geopolitical and macroeconomic situation, whereas the magnitude and directions of passenger traffic are influenced primarily by the existing formal circumstances (bilateral regulations pertaining to minor border traffic) and by border area small trade situation. It is interesting to know that the situation in Ukraine resulted in increased rather than decreased level of traffic. However, it must be admitted that this increase was restricted, to a larger extent, to minor border traflic. It should be linked directly to the worsening economic situation in the Ukraine, which caused people to seek additional sources of income ( small trade or employment in Poland). As regards the relations with Russia, it ought to be assumed (in spite of the incomplete available data) that due to geopolitical situation there was a noticeable decrease in passenger traffic between Russia and Poland, excluding, however, the Kaliningrad Oblast. Apparently, the minor border traffic seemed to be more resistant to the general deterioration of Polish-Russian relations. Also, it has been found out that in the period of growths after 2009 there remained a steady concentration of freight transit traffic from Russia on routes running through Latvia, Lithuania and Via Baltica to Warsaw and further to Germany. Simultaneously, there occurred a gradual increase in the volume of traffic at the Polish-Belarusian border-crossings, especially in Kukuryki, which can be interpreted as a slow revival of transit traffic operating in the Minsk-Warsaw direction. The traffic from Ukraine took place exclusively and directly through the Polish-Ukrainian border, and gradually it was moving onto the route that runs through Warsaw and A2 motorway. It can be assumed that the routes of Ukrainian traffic transit in Poland were strongly influenced by infrastructural factors. From a long-run perspective, it can be seen that there exist changing trends with regard to the level of traffic concentration, especially in the case of freight traffic. Initially, tendency toward deconcentration was prevalent, which was related to the process of opening of the new border-crossings and to their limited capacity (giving preference to distant border-crossings with low congestion). In recent years the situation has clearly gone into reverse. One can observe again the higher concentration of passenger and freight traffic flows on the main road routes. In all probability, the significant contributing factor is in this case the development of Polish network of motorways and express roads.
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