ETCS (European Train Control System)

The ETCS is a single pan-European signalling system that will secure the single European railway and ensure its safer operation. It will also ensure that trains of railway undertakings can move freely, without problems and from one country to another.

This system replaces a large number of different, mutually incompatible and often obsolete systems which exist in the different countries.

The system consists of 2 major parts - trackside equipment and on-board equipment:

• The mobile or on-board part is mounted on vehicles.
• The trackside or infrastructure part is installed along the lines.

To allow communication between the trackside and the mobile part, in some variants of the ETCS system we also use the GSM-R wireless network.

The planned introduction of the exclusive operation of trains under the control of the single European Train Control System was phased in over a four-week period in January 2025. In total, the system is used on 622 kilometres of the most important lines in the Czech Republic.

• from 1 January 2025: Česká Třebová – Olomouc – Dluhonice – Prosenice/Přerov.
• from 8 January 2025: Břeclav – Bohumín
• from 15 January 2025: Česká Třebová – Adamov and Modřice – Břeclav
• from 22 January 2025: Praha-Běchovice – Pardubice – Česká Třebová

Every month about 50,000 trains are running under the control of the ETCS. This represents 42 % of all the operational performance on the entire network of the Správa železnic in terms of mileage and tonnes of the freight transported. The ETCS system operates with a reliability of 99,1 percent.

Further information on the ETCS including the plan of the ETCS implementation on the corridor lines in the Czech Republic can be found at 👉 ETCS