The state will not use a temporary solution to secure local railway lines, Minister of Transport Karel Havlíček (for YES) told reporters today. It wants to combine mandatory pre-departure driving reports, the installation of lights and the gradual introduction of ETCS signaling equipment. In the past week, several incidents occurred on Czech lines. The safety of small lines has been criticized by drivers and manufacturers, according to whom these lines can be secured with existing equipment. However, the state did not allow them.
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“We cannot be pressured into a hasty solution. We have to secure these lines with a long-term solution, not temporarily, “said Havlíček. According to him, the solution offered by security equipment manufacturers may not be ideal.
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He therefore wants to combine three basic solutions. On the smallest lines, there should be a reporting obligation for drivers, who will have to report their departure from the station to the dispatcher before leaving the line at the crossing. On other lines, the signal should be monitored by traffic lights and on the busiest ones by ETCS signaling equipment, which will allow the train to stop at a distance. In the future, this facility could also be on regional lines, the Railway Administration is developing a simplified version. However, it can take decades.
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The reporting obligation for train drivers now applies only on certain lines; according to Jiří Svoboda, General Director of the Railway Administration, the state is considering its nationwide introduction from next year.
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The implementation of the ETCS system is thus a priority for Havlíček. “It will be one of the largest investments in transport infrastructure in the Czech Republic,” said the minister. In the next decade, according to him, the state will invest tens of billions of crowns in the introduction of equipment on the lines, and tens of billions of crowns will be spent on train equipment.
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The current security of local lines has been criticized by train drivers, according to whom it is no longer possible to rely solely on the human factor. They therefore call for the accelerated introduction of safety technologies, such as the Radioblok system, which operates on the line in Volarsko. This system was developed by the company AŽD Praha, which offered its extension to the state for other lines as well. According to the head of the company Zdeněk Chrdle, the device could operate at least temporarily before the introduction of ETCS. The installation of this device can take decades. However, the Ministry of Transport rejected the system and identified ETCS as the only solution.
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Last week, several incidents occurred on Czech railways. The most tragic accident was the head-on collision of two trains on the local line between Pernink and Karlovy Vary, in which two people died. The section belongs to the lines with simplified traffic management, so it depends only on people. According to a preliminary investigation, the cause of the accident was unauthorized entry on the track of one of the trains. A minor accident also occurred in Prague, where one of the trains easily crashed into a standing Pendolino car, which was waiting on the spot due to a previous collision of a person on the track. Nothing happened to anyone in the accident.
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