Monika Jandová

Long-Distance Passenger Transport: Geography, Infrastructure, Competition – A Conference Report

Charles University in Prague and Masaryk University in Brno have been organising a one-day international conference held in Prague biennially. In the previous two conference years, it was devoted first to competition in passenger railways in CEE countries (in 2014) and then to HSR in CEE countries (in 2016). This year conference took place on the 25th May 2018 at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Charles University in Prague) and was dedicated to long-distance passenger transport. The aim of the conference was to document changes that the long-distance market has undergone especially in Central Europe due to increasing mobility, policy challenges, infrastructure investment and service innovations and to analyse its impact on national and European transport markets. The conference was divided into three sessions. The first one was focused on British, French and Central European experience, the second session to Swedish, Italian and Swiss case and finally the third to the detailed Polish and Slovak experience.

Open Access Passenger Rail Competition – Round Table Report

© 2017 by the authors; licensee Review of Economic Perspectives / Národohospodářský obzor, Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Brno, Czech Republic. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives. Open Access Passenger Rail Competition – Round Table Report Zdeněk Tomeš, Monika Jandová

High-Speed Rail for Central and Eastern European Countries: A Conference Report

Abstract The European transport strategy promotes the role of railways and expects that the key role in passenger transport should be played by high-speed rail (HSR). Although the core network of high-speed lines has already been built and is operating in Western Europe, there has been little coverage so far in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The aim of the conference “High-Speed Rail for CEE Countries” that took place in Prague in June 2016 was to put together academics, policy-makers, and practitioners interested in HSR and to formulate recommendations for CEE countries based on West European countries’ experience. Based on the conference presentations and subsequent discussion, the following conclusions were formulated. Firstly, there are many crucial differences in national HSR build-up and operation, which means that former experience of Western Europe is not directly applicable to CEE countries. Secondly, in comparing presentations discussing experiences in France, Britain, Italy, and Germany, it was concluded that the German approach-upgrading existing lines where possible and only building new lines for bottleneck sections-was the most likely appropriate solution in CEE. Lastly, CEE has the additional problem of many border crossings, with a reduction of traffic in comparison with purely domestic routes, and this effect has to be taken into account.

Experiences with Railway Regulation in Great Britain and the Czech Republic – Round Table Report

Abstract The aim of the Round Table was to compare British and Czech experiences with railway regulation and competition introduction and to determine which lessons can be learnt. Special attention was paid to the question of whether the very complex British reform can be an inspiration for further liberalisation of the railway sector in the Czech Republic or whether there are any reform mistakes that are best avoided. Based on two introductory presentations and subsequent plenary discussion, some consensus emerged. The participants agreed that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to railway regulation and that the introduction of competition should take into account the different circumstances of a particular country. Franchising in passenger operations in Britain successfully stimulated demand but also increased costs to the industry, so its implementation should be completed with care. It seems very unlikely that open-access competition would be a viable solution for the whole passenger rail market because it is limited to a few commercially attractive routes, and as Czech experience suggests, it creates many new problems. Finally, it was confirmed that a strong and dedicated regulator is needed in a newly liberalised environment in order to solve many emerging conflicts and disputes.

Gravity Models of Internal Migration – the Czech Case Study

Abstract In this paper, the models of internal migration flows between regions (NUTS 3) in the Czech Republic in time series from 1991 to 2012 are tested. The paper aims to find out how size, distance and economic variables explain migration flows between Czech regions. Several versions of an extended gravity model were used for testing, where economic factors which are frequently mentioned in literature on migration were used as regressors (i.e. average wage, registered unemployment rate, job vacancies and job vacancies per applicant). Internal migration flow is the dependent variable. In comparison to the pure gravity model, the extending of models with the economic variables improves the results of the models only slightly. The results show that the highest explanatory value of migration is given by models with rates of the variables tested.

Milestones of Development on the Railway Route Prague–Ostrava

Liberalization of the transport system in the Czech Republic determines both public bus and railway transport to a large extent. The route Prague–Ostrava has become a milestone in the liberalization process in the Czech Republic. Nowadays, there are three competing railway operators providing public long-distance transportation. The aim of our article is to identify key economic and traffic characteristics of this railway route with regard to growing competition.