Rail infrastructure manager Sprava zeleznic to consider private funding of the Prague Airport line
Due to lack of money in the state budget, the rail infrastructure manager Sprava zeleznic is looking for alternative financial
Due to lack of money in the state budget, the rail infrastructure manager Sprava zeleznic is looking for alternative financial sources for the most expensive projects. With the approval of the Ministry of Transport, it will examine the possibility of financing new lines with private capital within PPP projects.
There are two projects to be examined: the line from Prague Veleslavín to Vaclav Havel Airport with costs of CZK 16 billion (EUR 624 milion) and Corridor 4 in the Nemanice – Sevetin stretch near Ceske Budejovice with two long tunnels and estimated costs of over CZK 25 billion (EUR 975 milion).
A feasibility study is to assess the suitability and profitability of the PPP method, where a private party finances and builds the construction, which is then repaid by the state in the long term. RIM Sprava zeleznic is currently preparing a tender for the study, having announced preliminary market consultations on March 3.
“Taking into account the financial complexity of these investment projects and the search for alternative sources, we will examine the profitability and feasibility of a PPP project, in which a private partner should provide the construction including its financing and maintenance of the railway line,” the RIM Sprava zeleznic documentation reads.
The documentation for the preliminary market consultations also indicates the expected time of implementation of both projects. The modernisation and new construction of the line from Prague Veleslavin to Vaclav Havel Airport station has a completion period of 2023–2029. The Vaclav Havel Airport station itself should be completed in September 2029; so far, there has been talk of the first train arriving at the airport in 2028.
The stretch from Sevetin to Nemanice is approximately 17 kilometers long and will include two tunnels, one with a length of 4,810 meters and another with a length of 3,120 meters. Implementation: 6/2023 to 3/2031.
In the light of the only domestic transport PPP project so far, in which the D4 highway between Pisek and Pribrami has been under construction since last year, these dates seem rather optimistic. The use of the PPP project for D4 was approved by the government in January 2016, the tender for the licensee was announced in May 2018 and the contract was signed in February 2021, with the whole process thus taking up five years.