As Darko Bicak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of September, 2020, given the fact that over the past 15 years Croatia has almost completely completed its investments in strategic road construction projects, and after that those of air transport, it is time to invest in railway infrastructure, which, with the abundant help of EU funds, is finally underway throughout Croatia. Meet the latest Croatian mega project.
The latest Croatian mega project is the procurement of 21 new low-floor trains, coming with a total value of more than one billion kuna. The Minister of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butkovic, together with the President of the Management Board of HZ Putnicki prijevoz (passenger transport), Zeljko Ukic, and the Director of the Central Agency for Financing and Contracting, Tomislav Petrica, will sign a contract for securing grants from EU funds.
Out of a total of 21 new low-floor trains from this new Croatian mega project, 11 of them will be intended for city – suburban lines, and the remaining 10 will be for regional lines. Eligible project costs will be financed from EU funds, ie the Cohesion Fund, in the amount of 85 percent, while the rest will be financed from the Croatian state budget.
So far there are 12 trains
This new Croatian mega project is part of the “Project for the renewal of the HZ Passenger Transport fleet”, within which 12 new trains have been procured so far, which are currently in the production process.
Through the realisation of these procurements, HZ Putnicki prijevoz will have a total of 32 new trains under its belt over the next three years, for urban – suburban and regional traffic, which, along with 28 new trains that are now in service, will significantly improve the quality of their given transport services. During the last year, HZ Infrastruktura (Infrastructure), a public company in charge of investments and the maintenance of the national railway network, made a total of 950.9 million kuna in investments, which is 29 percent more than they did the year before. As much as 74 percent of the money, or 700.9 million kuna, is co-financed by EU funds. The company has pointed out that due to the coronavirus crisis, the dynamics of the work being carried out on contracted investment projects has slowed down a bit, and the start of work on newly contracted projects has been delayed.
The coronavirus factor
The fact that Croatian railway traffic is growing even during this crisis has been confirmed by the network regulatory agency HAKOM, which pointed out that in the second quarter of 2020, the Croatian railway services market transported 2.5 percent more goods when compared to the same period last year, and it achieved more train kilometres and tonne-kilometres in freight transport.
“These three indicators indicate that, although the coronavirus crisis has generally affected and reduced the transport of goods in Croatia, the railway has taken over the transport of part of that cargo by other means of transport, such as road or air transport,” HAKOM said.
The share of train kilometres made freight transport in the total realised train kilometres, which includes passenger transport, stood at 47 percent. The largest freight carrier was the public HŽ Cargo with a share of train kilometres of 56.3 percent, and the rest was achieved by eight new carriers on this market. The indicator of realised tonne-kilometres in the second quarter grew by 17.5 percent when compared to the previous year. On the market of passenger railway transport, the number of transported passengers decreased by as much as 66.6 percent when compared to the second quarter of 2019.
The main reason for less passenger transport was the decision of the National Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia on the temporary suspension of public rail passenger transport from March the 22nd to May the 10th, 2020.
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