“The figures show two main trends: people are returning to trains and travelling for longer distances,” says ČD CEO, Mr Václav Nebeský. “Transport performance grew by 5.6% and the average distance travelled by passengers in our trains is almost 48km. Due to our new rolling stock and new services people are willing to commute for their work over longer distances than in the past. Moreover, recent research shows that our long-distance services are popular as an alternative to car travel for visiting relatives and friends.”
ČD is focusing increasingly on long distance, particularly after it lost recent tenders awarded by both national and regional transport authorities to new entrants Arriva Vlaky, Leo Express and RegioJet, which began operating these services in December.
ČD is set to introduce new rolling stock between Cheb and Prague and introduce around 50 coaches to help meet expected passenger growth between Prague and Pilsen. In addition, ČD is currently out to tender for 180 new coaches for long-distance services and preparing an order for new locomotives.
However, ČD warns that the railway network in the Czech Republic is struggling to cope with demand and that measures must be taken to enhance the capacity. Czech infrastructure manager Správa Železnic (SŽ) recently conducted trials with ETCS at 200km/h on the Vranovice - Břeclav section of the Prague - Vienna/Bratislava main line using a train composed of a measuring coach and a ČD first-class EuroCity coach, hauled by a ČD Siemens Vectron multi-system locomotive equipped with ETCS Level 2, baseline 2. The maximum speed on the line is currently 160km/h.
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