The best way to measure how far the volume of commercial traffic in the Czech Republic has fallen since the coronavirus outbreak began is to look at the amount collected by the country’s automatic toll system. Its operator CzechToll racked up CZK 250m in the week before the state of emergency was declared, but this began to fall beginning from March 16 to its current level of just CZK 150m. That’s a fall of 40 percent, though statisticians point out that the Easter holidays would have contributed to this. The primary contributors to the situation were complications at the country’s borders, the disruption of automobile manufacturing and the lack of buses travelling on the motorways. “We’re at the bottom now,” says Vojtěch Hromíř, director of the road transport operators association ČESMAD Bohemia. “Traffic should begin to pick up but gradually as the car manufacturers ramp up production again. But there’s still going to be less for the rest of the year, I’d say around 20 percent.”
