The government supported the amendment to act No. 416/2019 coll. on the acceleration of the construction of transport, water and energy infrastructure, initiated by the transport minister and MP Dan Ťok. By accepting the compromise proposal by the MP, on which there is consensus across the political parties, the 13-year cycle, which each infrastructure construction project today goes through, will be shortened.
By 2021 several hundreds of new standard recharging stations for electric vehicles will be available to drivers in the Czech Republic. Their construction will be supported by the Ministry of Transport from European funds. Up to CZK 100 million for the support of the alternative fuel infrastructure can arrive from the Operational Programme Transport.
The requirements EU directive on rules for driving licences of category C/C1 and D/D1 are already met in the applicable amendment to the road traffic law, effective from July, 1, 2018. This way, the Ministry of Transport responded to the objections of the European Commission which the EU Court of Justice also confirmed today.
The European Commission has paid a total of CZK 150 billion to the Czech Republic for new motorways, roads and railway repairs from the Operational Programme Transport I. This programme is now therefore completely closed and the transportation sector managed to successfully draw down the funds without any loss. Another CZK 19 billion is being distributed to construction sites from the follow-up Operational Programme Transport II.
The government of Andrej Babiš declared in its programme statement that senior citizens over 65, pupils and students under 26 will travel free of charge in trains. The continuation of the D49 motorway has been added to selected priority transport projects.
Emission Measurement Stations will start taking photos of vehicles from January on. The images will be stored, together with the measurement results, in an online information system of the Ministry of Transport. So the system, which the stations were testing during November and December, will now be launched. A similar process has applied already since 2016 for providing evidence of the presence of a vehicle in Technical Inspection Stations.