The Czech Republic has a very dense railway network, but the speed parameters operate at low levels, the competitiveness being also low, as well as the market share. The Czech Republic plans to improve the existing lines which will increase quality, but line modernisation at speeds of 160 km/h means a less significant speed increase, and we cannot talk about fair conditions as regards the competition with the road transport. The modernisation of existing lines at speeds of 160 km/h is convenient for the freight and regional transport, but not for the long-distance transport”, declared Jan Ilik, Ministerial Counsellor – Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic, Department of Railways and Combined Transport, on the occasion of his participation in the Railway Days Summit on October 9 – 10.
The Ministry of Transport plans to modernise the TEN-T network transiting the Czech territory, to improve and modernise conventional lines for the purpose of increasing the speed and the freight and passenger transport capacity”, mentions Jan Ilik.
Ilik also discussed about what high-speed railway transport means for the Czech Republic, as well as about the advantages of the connection to the TEN-T network.
“Studies have been prepared ever since 1995, studies which analysed the impact of the high-speed railway transport. But the following question appeared: Do we really need high-speed? Starting from 2011, the Czech Republic has reshaped the ”high-speed” concept into the “rapid service” concept, which proved to be be-neficial for the national network, improving connections to major cities but also to the cities to the Czech borders.
The rapid service is a quite complex concept which will include not only the infrastructure modernisation, but also the modernisation of the entire landscape crossed by railway lines, of railway stations, of crossing points that will intersect the existing railway network, the resolution of some operational problems, as well as the planning of different types of future transport services. Likewise, the rapid service will represent the integration of regional development strategies”, added Ilik.
The implementation of this concept is planned for 2014 – 2020 and it will mean reducing travel times in the national network on the links Prague – Brno by 1 ½ h, Prague – Ostrava by ¾ h, Prague – Ústí by ½ h, Prague – České Budějovice by 20 minutes, Brno – Ostrava by ¾, and for international links, the increase of the railway capacity will be noticed on the routes Prague – Bratislava by 1 ½ h , Prague – Vienna by 1 ½ h and Prague – Dresden by ½ h.
The project’s first stage, the section Lovosice–Praha–Brno –Přerov, will be executed in the period 2014 – 2020 and after 2020 all the projects will be completed. The second stage will include the construction of the section Prague – Brno where trains will run at 200 – 250 km/h, the third stage including the integration of the Rapid Service, with speeds of up to 350 km/h, in the European high-speed railway network.
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