Providing services on a quality level is an important factorof management in the trade rivalry for the control over the market.The factors affecting quality comprise technical factors andoperational and organisational ones. The technical factors includethe choice, the due care and maintenance of the vehicle.The operational and organisational factors are the quality offer,performing the transport service, the response in case of action,and the information efficiency.The necessity to control the total quality management is theresponsibility of the management. All staff members must participatein the improvement of quality management in their particularworking environment. Improved quality managementprovides for a higher safety of business operation and jobs, resultingin enhanced social security, which is gaining importancein mutual relations.

The paper considers the environment and the tasks that theCroatian railways need to carry out in order to gain importancewithin the European transport market. It deals with the economicvalues that may be expected from the modernised railways.Therefore, the Croatian railways will have to undergotechnical, technological and organisational restructuring. Themarketing concept of meeting the customers' needs and demandshas to be developed. The marketing is meant and,among other things, the selection and definition of those segmentsin which the Croatian railways could do business successfully.These include: passenger traffic - suburban, then interurban(domestic and international in and out) and, accordingto the needs of the European railways, transit traffic. Ingoods transport - to identify the needs of big users and define thesize of the offer accordingly.Although the paper could not deal with concrete restructuringtasks (which is the first and foremost task of the CroatianRailways), it indicates the main directions. These include redefiningof the local traffic on railway lines class I!, then the employees,reorganisation and all the other transformations whichwill be carried out in continuity.

The paper deals with the implementation of Internet in trafficengineering with the purpose of improving the professionaland scientific research development of the traffic system in theRepublic of Croatia.Fast growth of the world computer network, Internet, andits applications in almost all the fields of human activities,change the picture of the modern world. The current exchangeof data in all their forms and the daily growth of the network,supplemented by almost incredible amounts of data that can bealmost instantly accessible, indicates that Internet is not just theinfomwtion technology revolution, but that it is a revolutionper se. More than 100 million computers are estimated to benetworked beginning of the 21' century.Internet seems almost as if it were created for the purposesof knowledge and expe1ience exchange in traffic, a relativelyyoung scientific branch. 11 can be concluded that the presenceof traffic engineers in Internet is today's reality and tomon·ow'snecessity.

The absence of a long-term traffic policy and of the policyof financing the constntction and maintenance of traffic infrastructurefacilities, represents a synthesis of numerous unresolvedrelations whose negative effects are felt in the overalleconomic and traffic development and consequently theevaluation of national potentials in the field. Adverse aspectcaused by the lack of a clear and feasible policy of financing thetraffic infrastructure facilities, is also a result of not having definedan adequate traffic policy, programme and strategiccourses of development, nor financing models that would be inaccordance with the market and economy system.This indicates that it is necessary to determine a policy forfinancing the constntction and maintenance of traffic infrastntcture,which has to be based on scientific development,team work, availability of plans and programmes to scientistsand experts, determined methodology based on marketing andeconomic logic in defining the programme and strategic tasksand assignments so as to make them feasible.In the near future, intensive preparations for investments inthe overall traffic sysiem are necessary, especially regarding thetraffic infrastntcture facilities - the pivotal points in the processof evaluating the traffic in our national tenitory. Croatia needsto define clearly its strategy in constructing and maintaining thegeneral traffic infrastructure, appointing at the same time thosewho will carry out the given tasks.

The authors analyse the reasons for using the interurban bustransport in Croatia based on a swvey carried out in 1996, on asample of 2,293 passengers. The respondents gave reasons fortaking the intentrban bus. The results indicate that the mainreason for taking the bus are going to or returning from work.Other reasons included going to school, visiting relatives andadministrative obligations at the local district.

The paper presents the research of the sophisticated vehiclerecognition and count system based on the application of theneural network. The basic elements of neural network andadaptive logic network for object recognition are discussed. Theadaptive logic network solution ability based on simple digitalcircuits as crucial in real-time applications is pointed out. Thesimulation based on the use of reduced high level noise pictureand a tree 2. 7. software have shown excellent results. The consideredand simulated adaptive neural network based systemwith its good recognition and convergence is a useful real-timesolution for vehicle recognition and count in the floating bridgesevere conditions.

The main task of this work is that of applying somespecific statistical and mathematical methods in researchingthe measures of concentration of the numberof employees and their net wages, in other words the incomesin certain economic branches of production andthe service sector in the Republic of Croatia.We deal here with the measures of inequality andevenness, and these are the Lorenz curve and the index ofconcentration. For the purpose of this research, 13branches, both from production and from the servicesectors, have been chosen for examining the measures ofconcentration according to the indicators.Before concrete realisation and calculation of thesemeasures of concentration can take place, a preliminaryvery delicate sorting out and modelling of the relevant parametershad to be carried out. This refers especially toadequate compounding of the carriers of the researchedphenomena.