Status Quo

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. The city proper is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 1.9 million. Between 1990 and 2003 the number of registered vehicles in Prague almost doubled and the volumes of traffic more than doubled. Furthermore, due to the introduction of fees for heavy goods vehicles in neigbourhood countries of Germany and Austria increasing freight transport was observed within the Czech Republic, including many city centre areas such as Prague.

Faced with these problems, the main aims of the Prague local government was a reduction of emissions, noise and energy consumption within the city, an increasing acceptance for clean vehicles and a more attractive city centre promotion. Electro mobility is seen as one of the key elements to reach this aim. To this extent the most important project was initiated by CEZ, the Czech energy production and service company which is the 7th largest player on the European market according to customers. The task of CEZ is to set up the charging infrastructure and provide the necessary energy to the customers. Peugeot is joining the 2nd phase of the project in 2010. The task of Peugeot is to provide up to 100 electric vehicle and to establish the maintenance for the vehicles.

Municipal company Prazske sluzby a.s. use as world premier natural gas cleaning trucks Mercedes Benz with PM 10 particles filtration and dustfree cleaning. The effect was a reduction of emissions from exhaust, cleaning of PM10 particles, and dustfree cleaning. Also there was an 47% fuel cost reduction compared to other diesel powered trucks.

The public transport company of Prague has established one line with electric minibuses (manufactured by the Italian company BredaMenarini) in January 2010. The vehicles circulating in the touristic hotspots of Prague in the historical centre. The company intends to purchase additional electro buses using it also for other lines.

The city of Prague was member in the EU funded project MADEGASCAR.

Regional Support Instruments

The City of Prague hjas established an environmental zone. It operates via a permit system for access in the city centre for heavy vehicles and buses over 3.5 tonnes and in the surroundings areas for vehicles over 6 tonnes. Drivers who wish to carry out goods delivery or building works within the zone area can apply for permits, which are issued on the basis of vehicle weight and legitimacy of access to the controlled zone. The differentiation in weight limits between zones was introduced to ensure widespread support for scheme implementation. The Institute of Transportation Engineering of the City of Prague, the police, inhabitants and fleet operators are all involved in the implementation and operation of the environmental zone. The compliance levels in the new part of the environmental zone were estimated at roughly 50 %. The heavy vehicle traffic was reduced up to 85% by this measure on the busiest routes, e.g. caused by shifting on appropriate routes like the city ring road. Related benefits are calculated as follows:

• Reduction in energy consumption (12.2 TJ */year);
• Increase in the attractiveness of the city centre;
• Shift towards more environmentally friendly vehicles;
• Decrease in greenhouse gas emission (CO2: minus 1,650 tonnes/year, NOx: minus 43.5 tonnes/year);
• Reduction of PM10 emission;
• Decrease in noise.

Regional Information Sources

www.praha.eu/jnp/en/home/

www.futuremotion.cz

www.elektromobilita.cz

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague