I respect the Prime Minister's decision. My priority was to launch an electronic vignette system so that there was no delay and people could use it from next year. I believed that the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure (SFDI) had such a contract entirely under control, and the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure repeatedly assured me of it. That is why I opposed the Prime Minister on the premature cancellation of the entire order.
Since December last year, testing of railway vehicles at speeds of 200 kph has been under way in part of the line between Břeclav and Vranovice. The aim of the tests is to prepare selected sections of the Czech railway network for the planned speed increase and to check the behaviour of load-bearing structures and other parts of railway structures under significantly higher dynamic load. The acoustic load of the line surroundings is also being measured when the vehicle is passing at a higher speed than today's 160 kph.
This year, more than 850,000 driving licenses will expire. There are almost 100,000 expired driving licenses left from last year.
In December 2019, CzechToll prescribed toll to carriers in the total amount of almost CZK 725 billion. In total, carriers were charged toll amounting to CZK 10.946 billion for the whole of 2019, i.e. 1,19% more than in 2018.
Following the expansion of the toll road network as of 1 January 2020, CzechToll operates a satellite toll system on a total of 1,102 kilometres of 1st category roads and 1,307 kilometres of motorways. Although the scope of charging has been extended by 903 kilometres, the operation of the cutting-edge satellite toll system is three times cheaper than the original microwave system.
Since its launch, the new satellite toll system has registered more than 3.5 million vehicle passages on toll roads using the new on-board unit. CzechToll collected more than CZK 40 million in tolls on Monday. Due to the presence of traffic police officers and significantly better driver cooperation than the company had expected, only minor and short-term complications in traffic were reported.