The gathering of experience continues: Railway undertakings shall make more use of ETCS signalling 26/8/2024|Press releasesSince August, railway undertakings have been obliged to run under the European signalling system if they have on-board units and trained drivers. Also, the rail line must be equipped with ETCS. Exclusive ETCS operation will start during January next year. "Compared to national signalling, ETCS will bring an incomparably higher level of safety on our railways. We will start exclusive operation on 620 km of our rail lines in the first four weeks in January 2025. The gradual deployment will allow us to increase our resistance to possible complications, i.e. one partial problem will not endanger the whole system," says Transport Minister Martin Kupka. Hundreds of vehicles will be running under ETCS and more than a thousand drivers will be trained. The operation is controlled by nearly five hundred train controllers from both central control sites in Prague and Přerov, including stand-by controllers. "From 1 January 2025, the exclusive operation of ETCS will be launched in the section Česká Třebová – Olomouc – Dluhonice – Prosenice/Přerov. A week later, from 8 January, the line Břeclav – Bohumín will be added to the system. The sections Česká Třebová – Adamov and Modřice – Břeclav will follow from 15 January. From 22 January, the section Praha-Běchovice – Pardubice – Česká Třebová will be connected as well," adds Jiří Svoboda, Director General of Správa železnic, on the start-up. A total of 622 km of lines will be in exclusive operation during January, which is 20 times the current level. Fifty thousand trains travel four million train-kilometres per month. This is seventy times the current level. Forty-two per cent of the operating capacity on the entire network of Správa železnic will be in exclusive operation. "The statistics of the Railway Authority shows that 1 153 vehicles have the relevant tests and keys for operation on lines under ETCS. A total of 811 vehicles belong to Czech and 342 vehicles to foreign railway undertakings. There are 1 850 drivers trained to drive under the ETCS signalling system," says Jiří Kolář, Director of the Railway Authority. Between 2018 and 2024 railway undertakings received a total of CZK 7.2 billion for ETCS on-board units equipment. There were a total of 67 projects involving 1 227 vehicles. The approval of the National Implementation Plan, including information for railway undertakings on the launch of exclusive operation, took place in 2017. The first line with exclusive ETCS operation was the line Olomouc – Uničov in 2023. The target date is 2030 when ETCS should be operational on the entire TEN-T network. In the Czech Republic there shall be 5 200 km of rail lines available.