More than a third of Czech Railways trains are over 30 years old. Despite subsidies.
Press release to audit No. 17/35 - 29.10.2018
The Supreme Audit Office focused on funds provided to carriers for renewal of rail rolling stock between 2012 and 2018. Auditors focused on the Ministry of Transport which distributed national and European subsidies for renewal of the rolling stock. Furthermore, they also scrutinized the process of the Czech Railways for the acquisition of the rolling stock which was purchased by the company utilizing subsidies allocated by the Ministry of Transport and also with the assistance of selected regional operational programmes.
Despite the slight decrease in the average age of railway rolling stock, a substantial part of the rolling stock is more than 30 years old, often beyond both technical and moral life. In 2012, Czech Railways operated around 42 per cent of such old vehicles. In 2017, it was around 35 per cent. The age structure of the company’s rolling stock corresponds neither to the existing or future demands of purchasers of transport services nor to the expectations of the public.
In the current programming period, funds from the Operational Programme Transport 2014-2020 can help with this modernization. The first call for applications for these subsidies was launched by the resort in June 2017, i.e., until the second half of the current programming period. The Ministry had not decided to grant aid on the basis of applications until the audit carried out by the SAO was finished in May 2018. A total of CZK 7,7 billion from this programme can be used to restore the aforementioned railway rolling stock.
The provision of funds for the renewal of railway rolling stock is also closely linked to the opening of the rail passenger market. The Ministry of Transport stated that the criterion for selecting the railway lines operator should not only be the price, but also the quality of the services and the rolling stock. This is where the funds for the rehabilitation of railway rolling stock were supposed to help. However, the rail passenger market is not being opened and the main rail passenger operator is still the Czech Railways, which provides 85 per cent of the transmission power in the Czech Republic. As a result, the beneficiary of almost all European and state funds was this company, which received CZK 4,6 billion in the period from 2008 to 2018.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office