Zbornik radova Koridor 10 - Kirilo Savić

3rd International Scientific and Professional Conference
CORRIDOR 10 - a sustainable way of integrations
Figure 1. European railway corridors in the Western Balkan [4]
Due to favorable position in European railway network, Serbian Railway Company was restructured in
2004. in order to comply with acquis communautaire of the EU. Rail infrastructure was separated from
rail operations, and open access regimes for the rail infrastructure took place. The most important task
for infrastructure owner is to improve infrastructure productivity and pricing and to invest selectively [3].
For the last couple of years, rail provided about 10% of public passenger transport in Serbia. This
value was 8.2% in 2011 [5]. Although rail rates in Serbia are about 30% lower than bus fares, bus is
generally preferred because of its reliability and frequency of service. Also, ticket price was not
recognized as a decision criterion for the choice of travel mode in the survey [6]. On the other hand,
rail provided 49.8% [5] of goods transport in Serbia in 2011.
Regarding the previous, one could conclude that the only challenge for Serbian railways is stimulation
and increase of passenger transport. But real problem is that Serbian railways were designed to carry
much more of both, passenger and freight traffic. Figure 2 shows trend of carried p-km, t-km and their
sum (rail traffic units or rtu) from 1990 to 2011.
Figure 2. Trend of rail traffic units over the period 1990 to 2011
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