Railway Undertakings

Rail transport

is an activity giving rise to a legal relationship between the transport undertaking and the person whose transport demand is being satisfied, and consisting in the carriage of passengers, goods, and animals or an activity aimed at sustaining business operations.

• Rail transport can be operated publicly or privately.
• At the moment, we only distinguish between passenger and freight transport.

• To be established in a Member State.
• To hold a valid licence and safety certificate issued by the Rail Authority or the European Union Agency for Railways.
• To be allocated infrastructure capacity
• To have a contract for the provision of the railway service with the infrastructure manager, unless the railway undertaking and the infrastructure manager are identical.

• To be established:

1. in a Member State, if the railway undertaking provides freight or passenger transport services within a publicly accessible siding, or within a publicly inaccessible siding the use of which must be allowed by the manager pursuant to Section 22a(3) of Act No. 266/1994 Coll., the Railways Act, as amended, or
2. on the territory of the Czech Republic, if the railway undertaking provides passenger transport services, with the exception of passenger transport services referred to in point 1 above.

• To hold a valid licence.
• To be allocated infrastructure capacity, if the siding is publicly accessible.
• To have a contract for the provision of transport services with the infrastructure manager, unless the railway/transport undertaking and the infrastructure manager are identical.

Holders of a valid railway undertaking license licensed to run trains on national and regional railways may also run trains on local railways or within sidings. Holders of a valid railway undertaking license licensed to run trains on a local railway or within a siding or railway undertakings not holding a safety certificate may also run trains on a junction with the national and regional railways.

A junction means the perimeter of a railway station or of another operational point where a siding or a local railway connects to the national or regional railway network.

If a siding or a local railway connects to the network outside the perimeter of a railway station or another operational point, the section between the point where the siding or local railway connects to the network and the closest railway station or another operational point is not considered to be a junction.

The Rail Authority regards a railway undertaking which runs trains at the junction of mutually connected lines within the perimeter of a railway station or another operational point on a national or regional railway as a railway undertaking licensed to run trains on a siding or a local railway; this undertaking only needs to fulfil obligations under its railway undertaking licence.