Poland’s planned rail projects have been reviewed by the Ministry of Infrastructure to benefit effective funding from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP-KPO). The result of this work is the decision to change the method of managing part of the funds planned to implement the projects.
The funds will be allocated to the rail infrastructure manager PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe which is responsible for the development and implementation of the projects.
The change in the allocation of financing for part of the railway investments applies only to ineffective tasks, the implementation of which could result in incurring unjustified costs in the absence of expected effects. This concerns tasks, the implementation of which could lead, for example, to the consolidation of the current, unfavourable track layout, the need to introduce further changes within the investment area, conflicts with other planned activities or the creation of a bottleneck after the implementation of the task, the removal of which would significantly increase the investment costs.
“We have been carrying out corrective actions since December last year. As part of this work, we are reviewing previously planned investments. The first of the review results was the Poznań rail freight bypass, and the next ones concerning Poland’s planned rail projects to receive financing from the KPO, tasks provided for the Kolej Plus programme and the National Rail Programme,” the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Piotr Malepszak, said.
Malepszak explained that ‘unfortunately, due to the high level of advancement, often at the construction stage, it was not possible to stop some absurd investments in the Przystankowy Programme [modernisation of train stops programme]* from a transport, economic and social perspective, under which stops were built without any analysis and no one uses them.”
Such an example is the “Patrzyków stop on the Warsaw – Poznań railway line where 4,000 trains stopped and only 23 people use it. Thus, the Ministry of Infrastructure will place great emphasis on effective investment of public funds, generating the greatest possible effect for passengers, carriers and the competitiveness of the entire rail transport sector,” the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure explained.
Due to the decision to shift the financing granted under the KPO to other railway projects, PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe withdrew from some concluding contracts. Most of them include the design, reconstruction or development of rail control devices, integration of control systems, installation of remote control in the signal box, installation of modern passenger information systems at selected stations, as well as the construction of Surochów station on railway line no. 101 Munia – Hrebenne.
PKP PLK has been obliged to allocate approximately PLN 500 million (EUR 117.1 million), which will be provided to expanding the scope of other tasks or implementing further projects that will bring greater benefits and better effects for improving travel comfort and developing rail transport.
PKP PLK immediately implemented actions aimed at launching projects as soon as possible that would allow for the full use of the PLN 500 million investment. The rail infrastructure manager, together with the Centre for EU Transport Projects, have already initiated the procedure of amending the agreements on co-financing with the KPO.
PKP PLK plans to announce selected proceedings aimed at using the funds from the KPO in the fourth quarter of 2024. The total value of EU support from the KPO for the railway is over PLN 18 billion (EUR 4.2 billion).
*In May 2021, Council of Ministers established the programme to modernise and build train stops until 2025. The programme is part of the “rail development strategy 2020 with a perspective until 2032” aiming at providing increase local communities’ access to modern and comfortable rail services which will deliver an integrated transport system throughout Poland. PLN 1 billion (EUR 234.3 million) has been allocated for this programme.
In July 2023, by the Council of Ministers 37 locations were moved from the reserve list to the basic list as part of the programme, a decision which will provide to residents of other towns better access to rail services. The 37 selected projects are worth PLN 160 million (EUR 37.5 million). Currently, this list of the so-called Stop Programme includes 207 locations with an estimated value of almost PLN 973 million (EUR 228 million).
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