The change of licences applies not only to motorists this year, but also to ship navigators and crew members. It is mostly professionals who must carefully watch the validity of their papers, i.e. navigators of vessels other than small vessels who obtained the licence between 1 May and 31 Dec 2014. The duty to change the license also applies to some navigators of small and recreational vessels. For this group this only applies to older papers issued between 1 Jan 1985 and 31 Dec 1995. Altogether, there are still 10 300 licenses that need to be changed by the end of the year. Only 4700 people came to have them changed this year.
The Ministry of Transport managed to open a total of 180 km of motorways and category I roads during the four years in office. To be specific: 96 km of new motorways and 86 km category I roads are now serving drivers. Work on new construction projects is in full swing, with 123 km of new roads being under construction. The Minister of Transport Dan Ťok will also officially start the completion of the D6 motorway or the Slaný bypass on road I/16 at the beginning of next week. Other priority projects will be gradually starting in 2018.
On Tuesday, 5 December 2017, a meeting of the EU Council, consisting of transport ministers, was held in Brussels and the Minister of Transport Dan Ťok was also attending for the Czech Republic. The minister warned at the EU Council that it is a big challenge to send drivers abroad. However, the Czech Republic is still ready to contribute to finding compromises that will improve the social conditions drivers while not compromising the competitiveness of Czech transport businesses. It is in the interest of the Czech Republic to find a European solution rather than adopt unilateral national measures.
What helped achieve "social peace" on the railway was the agreement defining the overhead fare for 2018 and 2019. The terms of this agreement were signed today by the Ministry of Transport and the representatives of railway trade unions. The cost of a standard overhead ticket will rise from CZK 1000 to CZK 1100 starting next year. The state will not determine the benefits in commercial trains. They will however be provided in the form of employee benefits directly by Czech Railways and the Railway Infrastructure Administration.
On Friday, 1 December, the sale of annual motorway coupons for 2018 for weight category up to 3.5 tonnes started. Coupons with a validity period of one month or ten days will be available for sale with the arrival of the new year. Their prices for 2018 remain the same as this year. The one-year coupon for 2018 is valid from December 1, 2017 to January 31, 2019, and its price is CZK 1500. The price of the one-month coupon is CZK 440 and the price of the 10-day coupon is CZK 310.
The Ministry of Transport will allow emission measuring stations that were unable to acquire the necessary software issue inspection reports in the current mode by the end of the year. Starting on 1 December, the emission measuring stations were obliged to send photodocumentation from the inspection to the Central Information System and post the measurement results online. The information was published by the ministry in an extraordinary bulletin.