Transport Sector Development in 2003

Infrastructure

Investment in the transport infrastructure again reached a greater amount of funds in 2003 as compared with the previous year. In current prices the growth of investment expenditures amounted to 8.6%, which represented quite an important increase with respect to the inflation rate of 0.1%. Altogether, these expenditures amounted to 1.41% of GDP (except the expenditures in urban roads and other public urban transport infrastructure). Similarly, as in 2002, altogether 70% of 2003 investment were covered by the State Fund of Transport Infrastructure. The total expenditures of the State Fund of Transport Infrastructure in the construction, modernisation, repairs and maintenance of the infrastructure amounted to more than 41 billion CZK. Also in 2003 the effort to remove the August 2002 flood damages was progressing. For instance, 930 mil. CZK were invested in the motorway and class I road infrastructure in this connection.

Investment in roads increased in the course of the last two years significantly; in the last year and in this year by about 55% and 25% respectively, of which the investment in roads owned by regions, i.e. class II and class III roads, were 17%. The expenditures in repairs and maintenance increased significantly for inland waterway infrastructure, which was caused by continued removal of 2002 flood damage. As far as the funds expended on the railway infrastructure repairs and maintenance is concerned, a turning point in time-series has been brought about by the change in the cost structure. As of 1 January 2003 the Czech Railways, state organisation, have been transformed into two subjects, namely into Czech Railways, joint stock company, and Railway Infrastructure Administration, state organisation, the latter being charged with the (state owned) railway infrastructure management. According to a contract between the Czech Railways, joint stock company and the Railway Infrastructure Administration the operations, modernisation and development of the railway infrastructure is ensured by the Czech Railways, joint stock company. In 2003, as compared with the preceding years, the costs structure was changed and depreciation of the infrastructure equipment is not included.

In the course of 2003, intense work to remove the August 2002 flood damage was continuing. As for the whole national economy the damage has reached an amount exceeding 75 billion CZK with the transport infrastructure damage representing a significant share; only the repairs of all the routes of Prague metro reached 7 billion CZK. The transport infrastructure construction was progressing according to official documents and within available resources from the multi-resource financing system.

In the field of road communications the repairs and reconstruction of roads was continuing, however, with a tempo which until now did not divert the worsening trend in the quality of roads, particularly in connection with high traffic load. Of large motorway structures there were six motorway sections under construction (D1, D3, D5, D8, D11, D48) and R6, R7 and R8 motorways. In 2003 the R 35 sections Slavonín – Přáslavice were completed (southern bypass of Olomouc) and Hodkovice – Rádelský mlýn in Liberec region, and part of Pilsen D5 bypass.

The work of construction on class I roads was progressing, and the following sections were completed: I/13 Chánov – Bílina, I/20 and 27 in connection with a link-up to D5 motorway, I/16 Velvary – Nová Ves, I/27 bypass Brod nad Tichou, I/38 bypass Jihlava, 1st part of the I/34 Pelhřimov bypass. Of the local roads the construction I/42 – VMO Brno, Dobrovského A was continuing as the most important action. The class II and class III roads are financed at the level of regions.

In the field of railways the optimisation of the Praha-Bubeneč – Kralupy nad Vltavou section was competed and in the last section of Záboří nad Labem – Řečany nad Labem the modernisation was progressing with the involvement of the ISPA financial instruments. Construction of two tunnels in the section Krasíkov – Zábřeh na Moravě was continuing on the connecting leg of the corridors, and the construction of Dlouhá Třebová – Česká Třebová was completed, also with the participation of the ISPA. On the second corridor the sections Ostrava – Petrovice u Karviné, Studénka – Ostrava, Přerov – Hranice na Moravě and Otrokovice – Přerov were completed, whereby the second corridor has reached its final stage of modernisation. The reconstruction of the Děčín, Choceň and Bohumín point of junction was progressing and, out of the non-corridor lines, the relaying of the Mladá Boleslav on Slovanka was finished. Also the electrification of the Horní Dvořiště – České Budějovice section was completed as a corridor IV structure. The construction of the Praha – Ruzyně airport terminal C has been launched.

Transport equipment

The development which followed the trend of the preceding years has been continuing also in 2003 and the number of registered road vehicles increased by 88 426 which represents an increase by 1.52%. Accordingly, the growth tempo showed a modest slow down as compared with the previous year where the increase amounted to 2.88%. Altogether 132 134 vehicles have been phased out and deregistered. As of 1 January 2004, altogether 5 829 249 of vehicles of all types and categories were registered in the Central Register of Vehicles. The number of passenger cars rose by 1.6% during 2003. From this it follows that the growth was slightly higher than in 2002 where it amounted to about 1%; the number of lorries grew also faster with an increase of more than 5% in 2003 as compared with 3% increase in 2002.

In the course of 2003 a partial increase in the age of the total vehicle fleet has taken place. The average age of all vehicles has increased from 16.42 to 16.60 years but for passenger cars it dropped from 12.72 to 12.49 years. The passenger car trailers with an average age of 17.66 years and special automobiles with an age of 18.28 years are taking a substantial share in the relatively high age of all motor vehicles. The average age of tractors is indeed fluctuating around 24 years, and for tractor trailers it is 27 years. The oldest vehicle category are the motorcycles, the age of which is reaching almost 30 years. On the other hand the average age of lorries was 9.27 years in 2003, and even 7.67 years for trailers.

Transport

In passenger and also in freight transport the development trend did not show any unforeseeable changes in terms of the volume of passengers and goods carried, the passenger transport as a whole has been more or less stagnating and freight transport performance has again increased. A slight downtrend has been recorded as to the number of passengers carried by public transport, including urban public transport, namely by about 1% and, on the contrary, the transport performance in public transport has increased by almost 1%. In public bus transport the number of passenger rose by 2.7% and, by contrast, the transport performance declined by 2.3%, the trend for urban public transport being in opposite direction. The number of passengers carried dropped by almost one percent, and the transport performance rose by 2.4%. The railway transport still follows its development trend, i.e. it shows a slight downtrend; the number of passengers dropped by 1.7% and the transport performance dropped by 1.2%. A marked rise is to be seen in air transport. Its performance rose by 3% in the course of 2003. As from 1993 the number of passengers carried, transport performance, as well as the number of cleared passengers at Czech airports has increased more than three times.

As regards freight transport, the growth of transport performance in 2003 amounted to 2.5% in total and the increase in transport volume was still higher, i.e. 4.5%. The growth has been recorded in all transport modes except inland waterway transport where the transport performance fell by 13% and the transport volume even by 24%. The largest growth has been recorded by air cargo, where the transport performance increased by more than 30%. After two years, the carriage by rail again went up slightly: the volume by 1.4% and the performance by 0.23%. The permanent road freight transport increase showed a slight downtrend in 2003, the volume of goods carried decreased by 5.7% and the performance increased by 3.3% “only”. The transport performance declined only in the 1st quarter, while the transport volume declined in all quarters as against 2002.

Accidents

In 2003 there were 195 851 traffic accidents reported to the Police of the Czech Republic, which represents an increase by 2.7% compared with the previous year. Altogether 1 319 persons were killed due to accidents (i.e. death within 24 hours after the accident; international statistics takes account of the number of persons dead within 30 days from the time of the accident – this would correspond to 1 447 killed persons in our case); there were 5 253 persons seriously injured and 30 312 slightly injured. The material damage was estimated at 9.33 billion CZK (this corresponds to 19 000 of Škoda Octavia passenger cars). The total number of accidents grew in 2003 by 2.7% so an increase is the same as in the previous year. An increase by 0.4% has been recorded also in the number of killed people (death within 24 hours, which corresponds to 1.1% of deaths within 30 days) and by 4.5% in the number of slightly injured persons.

Of the total number of accident items monitored monthly an increase for almost 60% of items (about 75% in last year) in respect of the number of accidents was recorded, and for 45% of monitored accident items (71% in last year) there was an increase in the number of killed persons. Again, the highest absolute increase was recorded for accidents which happened on a dry carriageway surface (increase by 14 412 accidents – i.e. by 11.5%), for accidents which happened under a good visibility the increase was 7.3%, and for accidents caused by motor vehicle drivers the increase was 3.3%. On the other hand, the largest decline in the number of accidents has been recorded for accidents on a wet carriageway surface – by 10 499 (i.e. by 21.5%). The greatest number of accidents was registered by the police in the territory of the capital city of Prague (35 589 accidents), and the smallest number of accidents was recorded in the territory of the South Bohemia region (14 397 accidents). The accidents in the territory of the South Moravia accounted for the greatest number of killed persons (248 persons) and the smallest number of killed persons due to accidents was recorded in the territory of the capital city of Prague – 65 persons only. In the course of last ten years altogether 1 951 467 accidents happened on all roads in the Czech Republic, 13 368 persons were killed (death within 24 hours), 59 791 persons seriously injured and further 294 564 persons slightly injured. The material damage was estimated at almost 69 billion CZK for the given period.

As to the accident cause, the majority of accidents were caused by motor vehicle drivers, namely 92%. The non-motor vehicle drivers caused 1.6% of accidents in 2003, and 3.8% of accidents were caused by wood or domestic animals. When we compare the age of motor vehicles we can generally state that percentage of accidents is declining, taking into account the vehicles manufactured prior to 1995. A greatest share in the accidents in 2003 showed the vehicles manufactured between 1995 – 99, namely more than 30%, followed by vehicles manufactured after 2000, while vehicles manufactured between 1990 – 1994 accounted for 20% of accidents. Older vehicles are accounting only for 25% of the accidents.

On pedestrian crossings altogether 19 pedestrians died in 2003 in accidents caused by motor vehicle drivers, which is by 13 pedestrians less than in 2002 but three times more than in 2000; 182 pedestrians were seriously injured in these accidents, which represents a decline by 52 persons; 592 pedestrians were slightly injured, which also represents a year-by-year decline by about 10%. Unfortunately, we have also to state the fact that the Czech Police registered altogether 17 641 accidents when the guilty driver drove away from the accident place, with 23 person killed and further 1 123 injured in such cases. The number of such accidents as compared with the preceding monitored period slightly dropped, i.e. by a mere 1%, and the number of killed persons is lower by 3 persons.

It remains a sad reality that, in average, in 2003 almost every 6,6 hours a person died (within 24 hours after the accident), every 100 minutes a person was seriously injured, every 17 minutes a person was slightly injured, every 3 minutes an accident was reported to the Czech Police, and every hour a material damage was caused exceeding 1 million CZK.

Environment

Equally as in last years the transport performance growth continued, particularly in passenger car traffic and road freight transport. The transport performance growth also corresponds to the increased consumption of non-renewable resources, namely both petrol (an increase by 6.6% compared with 2002) and especially diesel oil and gas oils where the consumption amounted to 3 085 tons, which represents an increase by 11.5% as against 2002.

This is associated also with the increase in the greenhouse gases produced by transport. The share of CO, N₂O and PM pollutants from transport in the overall pollution is still growing. On the other hand, the drop in the Pb proportion (to 2.9% of the 1990 level) is rather evident. The decline in the SO₂ production in 2003 (to 83.8% of 1990 level in contrast to 135.2% of 1990 level reached in 2002) has been caused by the reduction of the sulphur contents in diesel oil and in petrol, due to the Ministry of Industry and Trade Decree No 2270/01 Coll. on the fuel quality.

Solid particles are emitted particularly by diesel engines and accordingly they are mainly produced by the road freight transport. Also other transport modes have been showing a moderate increase in such emissions in 2002, namely to 130.0% of the 1990 level. The majority of solid phase is produced by older types of lorries without catalysts.