Transport Yearbook 2014

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Transport sector development in 2014

INFRASTRUCTURE

Infrastructure expenditures

In 2014, the total transport infrastructure expenditure volume increased again for the first time after six years and amounted to approximately 30.7 billion CZK. The year-on-year increase represented about 12%. In the previous period, the volume of investment financial resources spent in infrastructure has been decreasing from 2009 to 2013, when it was the lowest since 2001, i.e. lowest in the past twelve years. Overall, the development trend of investment expenditure of the past 20 years can be characterised as increasing over the period 1993-1997, as stagnating over the next four years, i.e. until 2001, followed again by an increase until 2008 when the effects of the economic and financial crisis emerged and the trend thus changed again into a decreasing one.

Despite the increase in volume in 2014, if expressed in current prices, the financial volume represents just 37% of the 2008 investment costs when almost 83 billion CZK were invested into transport infrastructure, this being the maximum financial volume of the past 20 years.

Similarly as in the preceding years, also in 2014 the majority of investment financial resources were provided by the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure (SFTI); however its share of the total amount decreased by 12% compared to 2013, thus reaching approximately 81%. Investment expenditure from the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure saw a slight year-on-year reduction of approximately 570 million CZK, which represents about 2.3%.

In 2014, investment expenditures in transport infrastructure represented 0.72% of GDP (excluding expenditures into local roads and other infrastructure for urban public transport), which is a slight increase that however does not reach the 2012 level. The respective figures were 0.71% in 2013 and 0.87% in 2012. As investments in 2011 amounted to 1.2% of GDP, a significant gradual reduction also in this indicator occurred, and when compared to 2010, the reduction is to less than half of the amount as the investment expenditure into infrastructure in 2010 represented 1.7% of GDP.

Investment funds spent on roads continued to decrease also in 2014. However, the reduction of the financial volume was very minor compared to 2013, by approximately 570,000 CZK which represent about 2%. Of this, the investment expenditure in class II and class III roads, namely roads in the ownership of regions, amounted approximately to 7.8 billion CZK in 2014, i.e. almost 3 billion more than in 2013, this being the highest amount in the last five years. The percentage share of investments into these roads of the total investment expenditure in 2014 was thus rather substantial, amounting to 47%.

Contrary to the previous period, a substantial increase in investment expenditure into rail transport infrastructure occurred after five years. The year-on-year increase represented 44%, however the 2010 level has still not been reached.

As for other investment expenditures, a decrease was recorded in air transport infrastructure, by approximately 30%, while pipeline transport experienced an increase by about 50%. After a rather major reduction in 2013, inland waterway infrastructure expenditures increased again, namely by more than 40%, however not even the 2012 level has been reached.

After several years of stagnation, the total transport infrastructure repair and maintenance expenditure increased in 2014 by approximately 20%. There were no substantial changes in the preceding 8 years and thus this type of expenditure did not follow the steep declining trend in general investment expenditure of the previous years. The measures aimed at savings did not affect this area so much and in 2013, even a slight increase was observed not exceeding 1%.

An increase has been observed in all modes of transport except for air and pipeline transport. Railway maintenance and repair expenditures increased by approximately 19%, for road transport by approximately 21%, and a minor increase of 3% for inland waterway infrastructure. Air transport infrastructure maintenance and repairs experienced a decrease of 40% and the reduction for pipeline transport amounted to about 10%.

Road infrastructure

Development of the motorway network continued in 2014 by upgrading of the D1 Motorway Prague – Brno – Lipník nad Bečvou in the section Mirošovice – Kývalka. The following construction sections were put into full operation: “Upgrading of D1 - Section 05, EXIT 41 Šternov - EXIT 49 Psáře” (approximate length 7.3 km) and “Upgrading of D1 - Section 09, EXIT 66 Loket - EXIT 75 Hořice” (length 9.6 km); the following construction sections were put into partial operation (one side): “Upgrading of D1 – Section 14, EXIT 104 Větrný Jeníkov - EXIT 112 Jihlava” (length 8.5 km) and “Upgrading of D1 – Section 21, EXIT 153 Lhotka - EXIT 162 Velká Bíteš” (approximate length 9.0 km).

Construction of class I roads including expressways also continued in 2014. The most important constructions put into operation in 2014 are for example“R6 GSJ Hostivice – branches” that was started in 2013. Also the last stage of the reconstruction was started of the grade-separated junction on the R46 expressway in Brodek u Prostějova as part of the construction “R46 Construction works on the GSJ Vranovice – Kelčice, GSJ Brodek u Prostějova – Stage II.B” (the grade-separated junction Vranovice – Kelčice was upgraded in 2011 and one side of the GSJ in Brodek u Prostějova was completed in 2013). As for the construction of other class I roads in 2014, for example the following projects were implemented: “Road I/35 Bílý Kostel – Hrádek nad Nisou”, “Road I/44 Vlachov - Rájec“, “Road I/35 Valašské Meziříčí - Lešná, Stage 2”, “Road I/50 Nesovice, junction” or “Road I/37 GSJ Stéblová”.

The following range among the most important constructions of Class II and III roads implemented in 2014: “Urban Ring Road Domažlická - Křimická in Pilsen” and “Road II/231 Plzeň, Plaská - Na Roudné - Chrástecká, Stage 1” in the Pilsen Region; “Upgrading of the area Sokolov, Svatava Stage II (Part 1)” and “Upgrading of the area Sokolov, Svatava Stage II (Part 2)” in the Karlovy Vary Region or “II/353 D1 - Rytířsko - Jamné, Construction 2” and “II/602 border of the region - Pelhřimov, Construction 6” in the Vysočina Region. Other important investments into road infrastructure include the constructions “Relocation of roads II/156 and II/157 – Stage 4” in the South Bohemia Region, “II/449 - Rýmařov - Ondřejov, reconstruction of road km 0.00 – 11.40, Construction II” in the Moravia-Silesia Region or “Reconstruction of road II/408 Dyjákovice through-pass” in the South Moravia Region.

Railway infrastructure

Works on upgrading of transit railway corridors continued also in 2014. On the third transit railway corridor CZ/SK state border – Dětmarovice – Přerov – Česká Třebová – Prague – Plzeň – Cheb – CZ/DE state border, the construction “Upgrading of the line Rokycany – Plzeň”, with the planned completion in 2016, continued. On the section Cheb – state border, the construction “Optimisation of the line Cheb – state border, Construction 1-Stage I” started, with planned completion in 2015.

On the fourth transit railway corridor CZ/Austria state border – České Budějovice – Tábor – Prague – Ústí nad Labem – Děčín - CZ/GE state border, the project “Upgrading of line České Budějovice – Nemanice I” was completed in 2014. In parallel, the implementation of the project “Upgrading of the line Tábor – Sudoměřice” and “Upgrading of the line Ševětín - Veselí nad Lužnicí, Part 2, Horusice – Veselí” continued in 2014, the completion of both is expected in 2016. The constructions “Upgrading of the line Veselí n. L. - Tábor, Part II, section Veselí n. L. - Doubí u Tábora, Stage 1 Veselí n. L. – Soběslav” with expected completion in 2015 and “Upgrading of the line Ševětín - Veselí nad Lužnicí, Part 1, Ševětín – Horusice” with expected completion in 2016, started in 2014.

As a follow-up to the upgrading of railway transit corridors, the upgrading of important railway junctions was also in progress, the purpose of which is to guarantee the same technological parameters as on connecting corridor lines. For example, the implementation of the project “Through pass of the Plzeň junction in the direction of the 3rd transit railway corridor” was completed in 2014. The implementation of other important projects continued in 2014, such as “Reconstruction of station Přerov, Construction 1”, “Reconstruction of the railway junction Břeclav, Construction 2”, “Through pass of the Ústí nad Orlicí junction” and “Optimisation of the line Bystřice nad Olší - Český Těšín, Part 2 – Railway Station Český Těšín”, all with planned completion in 2015, or “Reconstruction of railway station Olomouc”, with planned completion in 2016. In the Prague junction, implementation of projects “Optimisation of the line Praha-Bubeneč - Praha-Holešovice” and “Upgrading of the section Praha-Běchovice – Úvaly”, both with planned completion in 2015, started in 2014. Also the implementation of the project “Optimisation of the section Praha Hostivař - Praha main station, Part I – Railway Station Praha Hostivař” started in 2014, with planned completion in 2016.

Projects aimed at ensuring interoperability of the railway network represent another example of substantial investments. In 2014, the implementation of the digital radio system GSM-R continued on other sections – for example the projects “GSM-R Kolín - Havlíčkův Brod - Křižanov - Brno” and “GSM-R Junction Praha (Beroun - Praha - Benešov)” started. Investments into railway infrastructure for development of suburban transport t and integrated transport systems continued also in 2014. For example the construction “Upgrading of the line Hradec Králové - Pardubice - Chrudim, Construction 1, double tracking of the section Stéblová - Opatovice nad Labem” started.

Inland waterway transport infrastructure

Similarly as in the previous year, the investment project “Sports Port Hluboká nad Vltavou” aiming at building of a port for 73 small vessels and 2 passenger boats contributed the most to drawing of financial resources in 2014. Its implementation was completed in 2014.

In the same year, the implementation of investment projects Water works Velký Osek, upgrading of the lock chamber and Brandýs nad Labem, upgrading of the lock chamber, started. Other investment projects aimed at development of tourism in selected areas of small ports and landing sites were launched. In 2014, the construction of the projects Leisure port Petrov on the Bata Channel and Landing site Purkarec on the Vltava River started and works on building of small landing sites on the Elbe River were completed in Dolní Zálezly, Libochovany, Lovosice, Nučnice and Libotenice. With regard to leisure navigation, the beginning of the construction of the new lock chamber Hněvkovice represents the most important event.

Detailed design preparation of major strategic constructions such as the Děčín Weir and Přelouč II Weir continued intensively also in 2014.

Air transport infrastructure

The most important share of expenditure in air transport infrastructure in the Prague Airport was spent on ramp position No 14 that was completed only in 2015, renewal of the X-RAY equipment in the luggage sorting area of Terminal 2 and also on the reconstruction of the taxiway TWY G. A major part of repair and maintenance expenditure on the same airport was spent on repairs of buildings and equipment, maintenance of the main runway RWY 04/22 and adjacent roads and repairs of apron and taxi areas of the airport.

As for investment costs spent on other airports, the following range among the msost important projects: full repair of the taxiway A on the Brno Tuřany airport; technical assessment of security detectors and airport information system and costs of repairs and maintenance of machines, devices and equipment on the Karlovy Vary Airport.

ROAD TRANSPORT FLEET

Based on information from the Central Vehicle Register, the number of motor vehicles registered in the Czech Republic experienced a year-on-year reduction of 13.5%. As at 1 January 2014, the Central Vehicle Register registered 5,500,560 motor vehicles, the total number of all registered vehicles including trailers of all types and categories amounted to almost 7 million as to the same date.

As in preceding years, the number of registered passenger cars continued in its growing trend also in 2014. In absolute numbers, this represents an increase of more than 100,000 vehicles, which constitutes a year-to-year increase of 2.2%. The total number of passenger cars exceeded 4.5 million already as to 1 January 2012 and currently at 4.8 million represents more than 80% of the total number of vehicles registered in the Central Vehicle Register. As for the age of passenger vehicles, almost 60% are older than 10 years and approximately 80% are older than 5 years.

The number of registered freight vehicles also saw a slight year-on-year increase by almost 3%. The number of vehicles not older than 2 years slightly increased by nearly 4% and an increase of more than 8% has been observed for vehicles older than 10 years. The percentage share of freight vehicles older than 10 years is however, with its value being less than 40%, substantially lower than this share of passenger vehicles.

In 2014, a very minor increase was observed also in the number of registered mini buses and buses by less than 1%, by approximately 5% in trailers and by about 8% in semi-trailers. The number of road tractors has been decreasing over the long term and based on information from the Central Vehicles Register, the numbers went down to around 25% over the past ten years. The year-on-year reduction in this category for 2014 amounted to 13%. On the contrary, the category of special automobiles decreased by 1.3% and the motorcycles saw a slight increase of 2.2%.

TRANSPORT

The total passenger transport performance slightly increased in 2014, namely by almost 3% and a very minor increase not exceeding 1% was observed in the number of passengers carried. The development of this indicator over the period of the past four years can thus be rather characterised as stagnation.

The overall reduction of passenger transport performance in 2010 was caused above all by the reduction of individual passenger car transport where the relevant expert estimate is based also on data on vehicle-kilometres as produced by road traffic census – performed every five years in the Czech Republic. The methodology of national road traffic census has been changed in 2010. After a slight increase in individual car transport in 2011, in 2012 a drop was observed also for this indicator. In 2013, this trend was reversed and both the performance and number of passengers in individual car transport increased. This increase also continued throughout 2014. As for public transport of passengers, the performance increased slightly by 3% while the total number of passengers carried dropped by less than 1%, therefore these rather insignificant changes can be characterised as stagnation.

In railway transport, the growth trend continued also in 2014, but there has been a substantial slow-down in the growth tempo as compared to the previous year. Transport performance saw a year-on-year increase of approximately 2.6% while the number of passengers carried was rather stagnating as the increase was less than 1%. Transport performance values in passenger railway transport have been growing for the fifth year in a row and are the highest since 2000.

The decreasing trend in number of passengers carried by bus transport and in transport performance reverted in 2014 and a slight increase was observed both in the numbers of passengers carried and in transport performance. The year-on-year increase in the number of passengers carried amounted to 3.5% and in transport performance to almost 11%, which is the highest value in the past four years. Despite the increase in the number of passengers in 2014, the value of this indicator is the second lowest in the past 10 years.

As regards inland waterway transport, where particularly passenger transport of recreational character was involved, an increase of 18% in the number of persons carried and of 28% in transport performance was observed in 2014. After years of growth in air transport, with the only exception of the decline in air transport performance in 2010, the decreasing trend in the sector continued also in 2014 with reduction in the numbers of persons carried by 8.6%. On the contrary, transport performance saw a minor year-on-year increase of approximately 1.6%. In 2014, the number of passengers travelling using Czech airports increased by approximately 1.5%.

In freight transport, the total volume of goods carried again increased in 2014, namely by almost 10%. Transport performance could be described as more or less stagnating, as the reduction was substantially less than 1%, remaining thus at the 2011 level. The volume of transported goods is the highest in the past six years.

A similar development trend can be observed in the volumes of goods in railway freight transport. This indicator saw a substantial year-on-year increase of 9%, with transport performance increasing by almost 5%.

The methodology of railway freight transport statistics changed in 2006 and newly also the carriers performing non-public transport (also involving commercial transport, but on the basis of mutually agreed conditions) were included in the statistical surveys. This resulted in the increase both in transport performance expressed in tonne-kilometres and volume of goods carried in the given year. Consequently, the data for 2005 are not fully comparable with the values for the following year. However, on a methodological basis, the data available since 2007 are already fully comparable with the year 2006 and mutually.

The volume of goods carried by road freight transport in 2014 experienced the second year of growth in ten years. The increase amounted to almost 10%, reaching thus approximately the same level as in 2009. This indicator has been experiencing a declining trend already since 2004. Transport performance for the same period, contrary to the previous year, also saw a year-on-year decrease of almost 2% and is thus lower than the 2011 values.

The volume of goods carried by air cargo is experiencing stagnation for three years now, and also the airports´ performance remains basically the same as in the previous year. On the contrary, air transport performance again saw a rather substantial increase of 44% and is the double of the 2012 results. The volume of goods transported by inland waterway transport increased in 2014, namely by more than 10% while transport performance on the contrary saw a reduction of 5%.

ROAD ACCIDENTS

In 2014, the Police of the Czech Republic investigated altogether 85 859 road traffic accidents which represents a year-on-year increase of 1.7%. However the growth rate slowed down compared to the previous year. The lowest number of investigated accidents was recorded in 2009, which was probably caused by a change in the legislation from 1 January 2009, increasing the “threshold” for obligatory notification of the accident from original 50,000 CZK to 100,000 CZK. The highest number of accidents was investigated in 1999 – 225,690 accidents. However, despite the year-on-year increase in the number of persons killed in 2014, the total number of 629 (death within 24 hours after the accident; EC statistics and other international statistics use number of people dead within 30 days since the date of an accident – this number reached 688 in the same year) was the second lowest since 1961. The lowest number of persons killed was registered in 2013 that was the best year as for this indicator since 1961.

The number of persons killed did not exceed the limit of 80 persons per month in any of the months of 2014, similarly as in the four previous years. The number of seriously injured persons decreased by almost 1% in 2014, thus becoming the lowest since 1990. On the contrary, the number of slightly injured persons recorded a year-on-year increase of 4.8%. The estimated material damage amounted to CZK 4.93 billion which is 1.3% less than in the previous year.

As in preceding years, particularly the motor vehicle drivers were those who caused almost 84.8% of accidents during which more than 92% of the total number of persons killed died. The number of accidents caused by drivers of motorcycles increased by almost 10%, while the number of accidents caused by freight vehicles decreased.

In 2014, the number of registered accidents caused under the influence of alcohol amounted to 4,637, i.e. 6% of the total number of accidents; 63 persons died during those accidents, i.e. more than 10% of the total number of persons killed. When compared to the previous year, the number of accidents is lower, but the number of persons killed increased by 11 and the number of persons injured by 60. Cyclists have the highest share of these accidents - in almost a third of all accidents caused by cyclists, alcohol was involved; followed by drivers of mopeds with 20% and pedestrians with 16%. In 2014, more than 250 accidents involved drivers under the influence of other addictive substances, the number of persons killed in these accidents amounts to 6 and additional 138 persons injured.

As for the distribution of accidents in time, similarly as in the previous year, the highest number was recorded in October 2014, the lowest number in February 2014. The highest number of persons killed in traffic accidents was recorded in September and July while February was the month with the lowest number, similarly as for the accidents. When looking at days of a week, Friday had the highest number of accidents while Sunday had the lowest. With regard to numbers of persons killed, the worst days were Friday and Saturday. In 2014, the highest number of traffic accidents was again recorded in Prague whereas the lowest in the region of Karlovy Vary. The region of Central Bohemia had the highest number of persons killed.

Out of the total number of people killed in accidents in 2014, drivers of passenger cars represent almost 39%, other passengers in passenger cars more than 13%, drivers of motorcycles almost 12%, cyclists 9% and pedestrians almost 18%.

In 2014, again more than 14,000 incidents were recorded where the driver causing the accident drove away from the place of the accident, which is 16.5% of the total number of accidents caused by drivers of vehicles. The number of these accidents continues to rise, namely by more than 5% compared to 2013. However the number of persons killed and persons injured in these accidents was lower compared to the previous year.