Transport Year 2022: new motorways, digitalisation and successes at European level23/12/2022|Press releasesThe start of key transport projects, the successful Presidency of the Council of the European Union, further significant progress in the digitisation of transport agendas, successful negotiation of a record budget for transport investments and organisation of humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees. That was the year 2022 at the Ministry of Transportation. In 2022 we had to deal with the economic consequences of the Russian aggression in Ukraine and the turbulence in the European energy market. I am pleased that despite these difficult conditions we have managed to move forward with a large number of important transport projects. We have started construction of the last missing section of the D1 near Přerov, work on the construction of the Prague – Kladno rail line with a branch-off line to the airport, launched the new Transport Portal and managed to meet all the transport priorities of our European Presidency," transport minister Martin Kupka summarised some of the successful projects. The dynamics of the whole year were changed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. Czech Republic has been helping Ukraine since the first day of the Russian invasion. Czech Railways sent the first train to Přemyšl for the evacuation of refugees on 25 February, the second day of the war. In cooperation with Poland we were also the first European country to close its airspace to Russian aircraft. "I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in helping Ukraine and war refugees in the first days and all the days that followed. Thanks to our high level of commitment, our response to Russian aggression was resolute," said minister Kupka. Roads The rapid pace of construction of key transport infrastructure continued throughout the year. We have achieved a record level of completion of motorways and category I roads – to date, 241.3 kilometres are under construction, including 143.6 kilometres of motorways and 97.7 kilometres of category I roads. A total of 21.2 kilometres of new motorways (+ part II of the Frýdek-Místek bypass in half of its profile) and 14.2 kilometres of category I roads were opened this year, including the long-delayed bypass of Olbramovice. "The most important new motorway section is the almost 15 kilometres of the motorway D35 between Časy and Ostrov that we managed to open for drivers before Christmas," said transport minister Martin Kupka. We have also started construction of dozens of kilometres of new motorway and road structures, including the long-delayed ones. "After many years we managed to unblock the situation near Přerov and start the construction of the last missing section of the D1 motorway. We had a similar success in Pardubice where we started construction (in the second half of December) of the north-eastern part of the city bypass," added minister Kupka. Railways Preparations for the modernisation of another part of the line Prague – Kladno or the optimisation of the line between Mstětice and Čelákovice started this year. Modernisation works on Corridor I on line Brno – Blansko and on Corridor IV to South Bohemia, reducing the travel time between Prague and České Budějovice to 100 minutes, were completed. A part of the third corridor between Prague and Pilsen in the section between Prague Smíchov and Radotín was also modernised. Regarding safety, the installation of the highest level of safety equipment has been completed: ETCS between Olomouc, Uničov and Šumperkwhere the first ever line in the Czech Republic will start live operation from 1 January. This busy regional line has undergone extensive modernisation and complete electrification. Digitalisation In the past 12 months the Ministry of Transport also paid a lot of attention to further digitalisation of transport agendas for citizens. A bill has been passed through Parliament that will make it possible to cancel the big car paper. In December we also launched the new Transport Portalwhere citizens can find, in a user-friendly environment, all previously digitised transport agendas in one place. "We save time and money to citizens who can find available electronic services in one place instead of several visits to the authorities and searching through internet links. From this point you can access existing transport-related services such as mileage checks, vignettes and see what is new. For example, the portal brings a new possibility of filling e-applications for the replacement of the driving licence due to theft, loss or change of personal data, pre-filling of applications to the Vehicle Registry and new applications in the agenda of vessels," says transport minister Martin Kupka about the Transport Portal. Digitisation will continue and the aim is to have a fully digitised agenda by 2025. European Presidency The second half of 2022 was marked by the Czech Republic's historic second Presidency of the Council of the European Union. And we have achieved several successes in the field of transport and space activities. "An agreement was negotiated on the form of the trans-European transport network TEN-Twhich represents a major boost for the development of high-speed rail in Central and Eastern Europe and better transport connectivity between countries. For the Czech Republic we managed to negotiate for example the inclusion of the Prague-Brno HSL, the Krušnohorský Mountain Tunnel and the Přerov-Ostrava HSL in the main TEN-T network, which will facilitate financing from EU sources," said minister Kupka on the successful agreement. During our six-month Presidency, we also managed to reach agreement on the wording of the regulation on the Secure Connectivity programme, now called IRIS2, between the Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission. The aim is to build a space infrastructure of many hundreds of satellites that will provide safe, reliable and affordable autonomous connections for EU users. Record transport budget Transportation will not come up short next year either. Despite the challenging economic situation, the construction of transport infrastructure remains one of the government's priorities. Evidence of this is the record budget for the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure amounting to CZK 150.9 billion. Following the example of other European countries, we are beginning to use alternative sources of financing. Next year we will be able to use the first billions from the European Central Bank (EIB) financing facility thanks to a memorandum of understanding. "The need for investment in transport infrastructure exceeds the current possibilities of the state budget, which is why we have announced that we will supplement it with other financing instruments, such as loans from the EIB. We are concluding the Memorandum because we want to cooperate with the EIB in the long term with a view to the upcoming construction of the Czech high-speed rail network," said minister Kupka when signing the Memorandum.