Zbornik radova Koridor 10 - Kirilo Savić

3rd International Scientific and Professional Conference
CORRIDOR 10 - a sustainable way of integrations
THE CURRENT STATUS OF PREPARATION AND REALIZATION OF
TRANS-EUROPEAN RAILWAY LINES PASSING THROUGH THE
TERRITORY OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC
Prof. Eng. Libor Ižvolt, Ph.D. Department of Railway Engineering and Track Management, Faculty of
Civil Engineering, University of Žilina Univerzitná, Žilina, Slovakia
Abstract
This paper presents the current status and overview of ongoing and planned modernization of railway
infrastructure in Slovakia in relation to the trans-European corridors passing through the territory of the
Slovak Republic. Following the technical requirements resulting from the international agreements
AGC and AGTC and the interoperability requirements; the current and future trends in design of
modernization of the main rail corridors for the operation of train sets at the speed of 160 km.h -1 and
for the train sets with tilting units up to 200 km.h -1 are characterized there.
1. INTRODUCTION
The political goal of the common transport policy of the European Union is to ensure the territorial and
economical cohesion of European regions. The unsatisfactory accessibility to any area in the
European territory is a serious obstacle that limits the development of regions, the influx of foreign
and domestic capital and the workforce mobility. Due to this the transport policy of the E.U, presented
by the White Paper, and the subsequent legislative activities focus on the support of railway transport
and the increase of its competitiveness against other means of transport. This is understandable as
railway transport is one of the safest and most environment-friendly transport systems. Reinforcing the
safety of railway transport alongside with the railway interoperability are the pillars of the forming
European integrated railway area.
The modernisation of railway infrastructure in the area of SR aligns with and relates to the E.U.
transport policy, attempting to benefit from its relatively favourable geographical position and includes
its main rail tracks into the defined European railway corridors. The European project of Trans-
European transport corridors was started in 1991 in a Prague conference. In the 2. Pan-European
transportation conference in March 1994 in Crete 9 corridors were defined. They represent the main
transport axes among the E.U and the states of Central and Eastern Europe. The proceedings of this
conference were revised and sup-plemented in the 3. Conference in Helsinki in 1997. That is why
these corridors are sometimes referred to as „Crete corridors“ or „Helsinki corridors“ regardless of their
real location. Thanks to ceasing the conflict among the states of the former Yugoslavia the tenth and
subsequently the eleventh corridors were designed. The eleventh corridor stretches from Romania
through Serbia and Montenegro to Italy. This network of corridors connects Europe from the Atlantic to
the Urals and from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, while the main reason for its existence is
improving the transport infrastructure internationally. In 2004, due to the decision of EP and EC
884/2004/ES, the number of corridors increased to 30, while their realization is assumed by 2020.
These corridors are different from the Trans-European transport network. The Trans-European
transport network was the E.U. project that stated all the main routes in the European union but at
present there are some proposal of connecting these two systems. This is also supported by the fact
that the majority of participating countries are the E.U. members now.
The TEN-T network comprises:
75200 km of roads
78000 km of railway tracks
330 airports
270 sea ports
210 river ports
and is shown in Fig. 1.
The Slovak railway network is a part of several important European corridors (corridors AGC, AGTC,
TEN-T), and these are (Fig.2):
Belgrade, 2012 80