2024-04-02 01:26:08
On a European scale, the Czech Republic is proud of its high-quality transport network and service. Billions from EU funds are also flowing into the modernization of transport. Nevertheless, there are regions in the country whose inhabitants have to rely on their own car. Or they prefer it because local public transport does not meet their needs. According to experts, the solution may be the involvement of artificial intelligence.
Estimates of how many Czechs are affected by poor traffic service vary. “It’s very complicated because what actually defines poor transportation service or accessibility?” asks Stanislav Kraft from the Department of Geography of the Faculty of Education of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice.
Photo: EU
“If you look at the map that evaluates the number of connections, which is just one of the indicators, it looks like very large areas. On the other hand, these are usually areas that are more sparsely populated,” says Kraft. He himself estimates that worse traffic service could affect hundreds of thousands of people.
The Czech start-up Citya, which is dedicated to operational public transport, states, based on its own analysis, that there are up to four million people living in the Czech Republic whose needs are not met by the current form of public transport. It includes, for example, people who have to walk more than 15 minutes to a stop or cannot get to it safely, have to transfer more than once during their normal journey, or drive longer than 45 minutes.
Life on the periphery
According to Kraft, the most problematic places in the Czech Republic are located on the outer and inner peripheries. The outer ones represent areas near the state border with smaller towns, remote from regional towns and administrative centers, where there is less demand for public transport. “It is typical, for example, in the southwestern area. For example, the Pilsen region, it is very nice to see there. Or the southern part of the Highlands,” explains the expert.
Map of transport connections from 2008. According to Stanislav Kraft from the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, not much has changed since then. Photo: Archive of Stanislav Kraft | Photo: Archive of Stanislav Kraft
According to him, however, internal peripheries are much more problematic. “These are areas at the borders of individual regions. Look at the Central Bohemian, Pilsen and South Bohemian regions or Vysočina,” he says, adding that the 2010 reform, which transferred the issue of transport services to the regional level, also had an impact on this.
At the same time, these places are also burdened by the aging of the population or the departure of economically active residents. “Commuting from these regions is inefficient, impossible or unprofitable,” Kraft explains. He adds that people in these districts are often dependent on cars, and this may exacerbate the problems in the future.
Other problematic spaces are represented by suburban areas. In the past, for example, the background of Prague, adds Kraft.
Janík from the Citya platform completes the list of municipalities that have their own public transport network, but it does not manage to serve locations with low density of buildings. “If a passenger can get to their destination in five minutes by car or fifteen minutes on foot, they won’t get on a bus that will take them to their destination in 15 to 30 minutes, and in the process go around half a city or three villages,” he explains.
The situation is then prescribed in the financial demands of public transport operations. Fewer passengers leads to a reduction in the number of connections, fewer connections continue to reduce the attractiveness of public transport.
The number of trips that people make – whether for work or in their free time – is increasing year by year. And this despite the fact that, just a few years ago, it was assumed that the mobility of the population would be dampened by the development of information and communication technologies, which would make it possible to easily work remotely.
New needs, new technologies
Janík from the Citya platform explains that people’s transport needs have changed. And because of this, it is necessary to choose new tools. “We are used to pulling out our mobile phone from our pocket, ordering food and having it at home within an hour. More and more people feel a similar need for transport – not only individual, but also collective. In order to meet people, we need public transport let artificial intelligence in and let it be driven more by algorithms, less by the distorted impressions of people.”
Citya focuses on operational public transport. The on-demand vehicles are complemented by a smart algorithm that creates a virtual stop for potential passengers near their location based on the collected data. The route of such a vehicle, for example a minibus, can then be recalculated in real time according to the current demand.
“It is important to realize that advanced technology allows mass transport to perform various tasks at different times and regions and always optimally in real time. You get maximum capacity and benefit while simultaneously reducing costs for the fleet of vehicles,” explains Janík. Citya launched a pilot project in Říčany, it has proven itself, and the platform has been cooperating with the city for a year and a half.
Tomáš Horák from the Department of Smart Cities and Regions of the Faculty of Transport of the Czech Technical University in Prague is also a supporter of operational transport, who collaborates with the start-up Citya and currently lectures on transport engineering at the University of Texas UTEP. According to him, on-demand public transport has great potential. “It’s a supplement to public transport. An opportunity to get even more people on the backbone network,” he explains.
Operative Transport is now eyeing new legislation to allow it to draw money from public transport budgets. According to Janík, Citya has been cooperating with the Ministry of Transport on it since 2022.
Regions and municipalities can only do a little, the EU helps
Despite the fact that there are still areas where public mass transport is lacking, in terms of the extent of transport coverage, the Czech Republic is in a good position compared to other European countries. “It is a legacy that we carry from before 1989. The public transport system, bus, train and all others, which was created here, works very well. And in terms of frequency, although it has decreased, we are still among the European leaders,” he reminds Kraft with the fact that public transport is also cheap in the Czech Republic.
The most recent yearbook of the Ministry of Transport states that in 2002, Czech bus transport carried 334,831,600 passengers, while rail transport transported 173,915,200 people.
Tens of billions of crowns flow annually into transport in the Czech Republic. “In 2022, total investment spending on transport infrastructure amounted to more than 90 billion crowns, which represented a year-on-year increase of almost 10 percent,” according to the Ministry of Transport.
The possibilities of the regions themselves or even the municipalities themselves are bound by their budgets. European funds thus represent a large financial injection. Between 2007 and 2020, thanks to European funds, 5,624 kilometers of highways and roads were modernized, 1,090 kilometers of railway lines were reconstructed and 2,196 new cars were purchased for public transport.
Money from European funds
The Czech Republic received 1.38 trillion crowns from European funds in 20 years of membership in the most important areas. Almost a quarter of this amount went to regional development from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF). Almost a fifth of European money went to transport, including the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund (CF). The money is also directed towards the greening of transport, more than 22 billion crowns will go to it from the EU Modernization Fund.
“In the field of transport, all projects related to road and rail transport were initially included. However, at the moment, only key road and rail networks connecting them regionally and selected regional mobility are included in this area. There are now at least around 30 in the development of regions percent of funds earmarked for transport projects for the renovation of first and second class roads, railway stations and combined transport stops and transfer points,” Petr Zahradník, an economist and member of the government’s National Economic Council, told ČTK.
Subsidy for quality
According to experts, the problem remains how to solve the quality of transport in terms of scale and frequency. “Subsidies go, for example, to means of transport and terminals, which modernize the entire system. We have new, more environmentally friendly, more comfortable vehicles. But the problem is ensuring transport service and the number of connections,” says Kraft.
Janík also agrees with this. “Obtaining financing for transport projects in municipalities and smaller towns is not easy. Most of the available subsidies are focused on infrastructure projects, such as the construction of stops, hubs or the purchase of new vehicles, for example electric cars/buses. Primarily therefore investments,” explains Janík. “Municipalities often receive money only for part of the project, for example for the purchase of a vehicle, while they have to cover all operating and other costs themselves. This can end up being more expensive and complicated for them,” he adds.