Poland will upgrade an important railway line using funds from the European Union. The support thus granted amounts to EUR 1.4 Million and is ensured through the TEN-T Programme. The railway line included in the modernization and rehabilitation programme is part of Gdańsk–Warsaw-Brno/Bratislava-Vienna axis. The project began in July 2012 and is due in December 2014.
The project is the 23rd of the 30 priority projects of TEN-T and has been selected within the 2011 phase of financing demands. Therefore, the project consists in the modernisation of a section of 24 km, Warsaw Włochy (district of the Polish capital) – Grodzisk Mazowiecki. The recently received financing will be used to elaborate the construction project and the technical papers for the organisation of the tender necessary before the initiation of actual works. The modernisation of this railway section will increase railway transport capacity in a densely populated area of Poland. The total cost of the project is EUR 2.7 Million and the TEN-T financing amounts to EUR 1.4 Million.
This axis Gdañsk–Warszawa–Brno/Bratislava-Vienna mainly involves modernisation and upgrading of the rail route – part of the former pan-European transport corridor VI identified at the Crete (1994) and Helsinki (1997) conferences – which connects Gdańsk via Katowice and Žilina to Bratislava and through a western branch via Brno to Vienna.
The corridor was identified as a multimodal north-south axis to create a complex multimodal transport system for goods and passengers with the port of Gdańsk, both rail and roads. As the name shows, the axis touches upon four Member States: Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia. Its western branch passes through Brno, the second largest city of the Czech Republic, while its eastern branch passes through Žilina, an important city in Slovakia, to the country’s capital Bratislava. The modernisation of the rail lines and the construction of container terminals for example at Gdańsk and Sławków next to Katowice, operational since 2010, could generate better conditions for the development of effective intermodal transport.
Modernisation works will allow increased speeds on the rail network: 160 km/h for passenger trains, up to 250 km/h for some sections in Poland and 120 km/h for freight trains in general. The modernisation of the railway line will also reinforce the attractiveness of rail, enabling a modal shift from road to rail.
Interoperability is a clear objective of the Polish infrastructure manager, PKP PLK, which grants PLN 470 Million (EUR 114 Million) to the installation of the ETCS Level 2 on the 340km Gdynia-Warsaw line, part of the current pan-European Corridor VI. The financing was granted in January 2013 and works will take 28 months.
Polish authorities want to obtain more financing from EU funds. To increase the percentage of costs covered from EU funds, Polish Minister of Regional Development and Minister of Transport have requested a meeting with the European Commissioner for Regional Policies, Johannes Hahn. According to warsawvoice.pl, the announcement was made by Minister of Regional Development Elzbieta Bienkowska.
Currently, the railway transport projects of Polish local authorities are 59% covered from EU funds, while those of the railway companies absorb EU funds to cover 70% of their projects.
As constructionpoland.com informs, in 2013, PKP PLK will receive funds of PLN 2.6 Billion (EUR 624.1 Million) to finance investment projects. Funds will come from taxes, informs a press release issued by Minister of Transport Slawomir Nowak. Thus, PLN 2 Billion (EUR 480.1 Million) were available from taxes from 2012 and these funds were transferred to PKP PLK and used for capital investments. Nowak has pointed out that capital investments in railway projects would continue to grow, while rehabilitation projects (including railway lines) would be a priority in the EU financing proposals in 2014-2020.
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