The purpose of the project of research and development (VaV) of the Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic No. 1F84C/065/410 "Charging railway infrastructure with regard to its competitiveness within international transport“ is to help limiting growth of negative effects of transport on the environment caused mainly by operation of road freight transport. The reason for having to deal with this issue is the fact that road freight transport in the Czech Republic steadily grows (with the exception of the global crisis, which resulted in reduction of freight transport since 2008) and its transport performance is considerably higher than transport performance of railway transport. It is therefore necessary to seek ways of shifting transport performance from roads to railways and determine economic conditions, which could be considered as motivating for a carrier to change the choice of transport mode. The project is aimed at studying impact of a unit price for using railway transport infrastructure on competitiveness of railway transport in order to determine whether its change can result in change in decision-making process of carriers selecting suitable transport mode. The project is based on assumptions that carriers do not prefer any specific transport mode and their decision depends on several factors, such as price of transport, delivery of undamaged goods in given time to the destination, etc., and that carriers include in the total price fulfillment of all conditions negotiated with transporters and operators. According to the assignment, the project was distributed into two years, and structured into seven primary objectives (DC001-007). In 2008, the following objectives were fulfilled:
In 2009, the following objectives were fulfilled:
Defined objectives of the project were met as follows:
Objective A) Methodology for determining border/maximal price for using the railway infrastructure was created and described within DC005 and DC007 (the border price lies in the interval between minimum and maximum limit). Minimum is the amount of reimbursement covering costs of maintenance and operation of the transport route, while maximum is the highest amount that does not reduce competitiveness of rail transport. Price is understood as price per unit of transport performance and for specific route of transport (depends on its length). The methodology uses “a unit of border price" in accordance with Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic. Objective B) Development of a computer model to determine maximal prices for using the transport infrastructure in two steps:
Objective C) Determination of border prices for using the railway infrastructure in current conditions: border price was determined by minimum unit border prices and maximum unit border prices specified in DC005 and DC007.
The project was finished on 31.12.2009.