Analysis of Costs and Market Development on the Passenger Night Train Market in the Czech and Slovak Republic after the Entrance of Private Operators from 2014 to 2017

The thesis was drafted as a supplement to the important study of the European Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN): “Passenger night trains in Europe: the end of the line? “. It focuses on recent developments within the passenger railway market in the Czech and Slovak Republic, which directly contradicts the pessimistic conclusions of the TRAN´s study. In addition, the thesis also answers an unanswered question of the Ministry of Transport and Construction of the Slovak Republic, whether is possible to operate night trains composed of couchettes and sleeping cars without subsidies. The thesis has an extraordinary added value to future research in the field of operational management and the financing of rail passenger services, as it provides not widely-available data of cost elements. On their basis, a universal model of direct operating costs of couchettes and sleeping cars was created and afterwards applied to Regiojet’s night train connection between Prague and Kosice. It concludes that the entry of competitors to the market led to an increase in service quality and a decrease in price to a level that drove the passenger transport by bus out of the market. A massive 105 % increase in ridership between 2013 and 2016 has deepened economics of density and thus decreased operating costs of rolling stock designed to night operation. The model confirms that night trains between Prague-Kosice could be unambiguously operated commercially. However, at current prices, only seating carriages and couchettes are generating profit, and de facto subsidising passengers carried by sleeping cars and so the average berth price must be raised to at least CZK 775. Furthermore, the output of the model indicates that the recommendation of TRAN’s study to support night trains by lower infrastructure charges would only have a negligible effect on the railway undertakings’ costs at SŽDC’s and ŽSR’s networks. Finally, a higher rolling stock utilisation (route extension) does not always have economic justification, as a majority of costs are variable, and therefore, bound to total vehicle-kilometres driven.