The Czech government has supported the modernisation of the railway line from Prague to Václav Havel Airport and Kladno and the Nemanice-Ševětín section of the line from Prague to České Budějovice in the form of PPP projects, i.e. cooperation between the public and private sectors. Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) said today after the cabinet meeting that he wants to use these projects for other railway and motorway transport infrastructure constructions.
Fiala said a country that cannot be driven from border to border in a reasonable time cannot be competitive. The development of transport infrastructure is neglected from the past, he said. “In order to build fast enough, we must cooperate with private entities in addition to the state budget and the maximum possible use of European funds,” the prime minister said.
A section of the D4 motorway between Příbramí and Písek is currently being built as a PPP project, and the government has previously approved the use of this method for the upcoming sections of the D35 motorway, which is to be an alternative link between the east and west of the country. Today, the cabinet authorised Transport Minister Martin Kupka (ODS) to continue preparing these projects for the railway from Prague to Kladno and the last unmodernised section of the line to České Budějovice.
Petr Šlegr, head of the Centre for Efficient Transport, disagrees with the construction of the line from Prague to Prague Airport and to Kladno in the form of a PPP project. He said that the new connection between the airport and the centre of Prague will not speed up the journey. In his opinion, the travel time will still be shorter, or at worst comparable to that of the train when using the bus and metro. Buses have shorter intervals and stop right outside the terminal doors. “The train station at the airport will be several hundred metres away from Terminal 1,” he added.
Another problem, according to Šlegr, is the uncertainty about the tunnel route between Veleslavín and Výstaviště. “There is a risk that an island section of 10 kilometres will be built at a cost of CZK 31 billion, where the train will pend between the airport and Veleslavín, where passengers will change from the airport to the existing metro. Moreover, this train will not be faster than the trolleybus, which is already being implemented,” Šlegr said, adding that the cost of the trolleybus link is estimated at one billion, while the cost of the train link is estimated at at least 50 billion.
“We have good experience with the ongoing completion of the D4 motorway, which is the first major PPP project in our country. We want to explore where else we could use this form of financing. PPP projects are not ubiquitous, but experience from other countries shows that they work as a complementary tool to ensure the construction of transport infrastructure,” Kupka said.
The transport ministry should also prepare feasibility studies for PPP projects for the northern bypass of the Prague ring road, the Central Bohemian sections of the D3 motorway or the not-yet-started sections of the D55 motorway. The studies should also cover the upcoming high-speed lines in Moravia. “This is the first step to examine whether it is profitable for the state to implement these transport constructions through PPP projects,” Kupka said.
Kupka recently said that the state will need to invest CZK 2.8 trillion in the next ten years to develop transport infrastructure, for repairs and maintenance. On average, the State Transport Infrastructure Fund budget will need to provide CZK 182 billion a year. According to the Minister, this will require a larger fan of financial instruments. Besides PPP projects, for example, loans from the European Investment Bank.
Source: CTK
