Resumen
Lower environmental impact of inland waterway transport causes its development to be high on the agenda of the sustainable transport policy. In the above context, the purpose of this article is to discuss the transport function of Polish inland waterways against the background of how primary European inland waterway systems are used. The desk research method was used to analyse waterway use, involving review and consolidation of statistics from various sources capturing freight transport on the primary inland waterways in Europe. Research has shown that inland waterways in Western Europe, regardless of the decline in freight transport in 2009, continue to be important for transport, and their performance may even be higher than that of the infrastructure used for other modes of transport. The transport function of inland waterways in Poland is fading as a consequence of the failure to perform multipurpose waterway management. The above is inconsistent with sustainable transport development priorities adopted by the EU.