In recent weeks, the peaceful level of transport news has been touched in recent weeks, where the Czech Railways train manager did not allow a group of students of the Klatovy grammar school to the motor train. The daily Zdopravy.cz devoted himself in two articles: You were too much, you should have had a reservation. The ČD train driver refused to let go of a school trip to the motorbike a The Pilsen Region is no longer solving a school trip on the train. But the train driver took a holiday.

Now it brings a sober reflection of the railway journalist Juraj Kováč. The author is a project specialist in the field of transport IT, focusing primarily on technological projects in the public transport sector. “Where exactly is the limit of one who still deserves to be on the train when all of these people pay exactly the same fare?” Asks Kováč.

My long -time friend working in academic circles with exaggeration says that the track is here to make the wheels spin, the lights shine and the switches are tossed – only passengers and cargo usually spoil. It should be added that over the past twenty years, access to customers on Czech railway has undergone a huge improvement and mocking comments on the address of especially Czech Railways, which somehow domesticated in the Czech pub debate are not entirely appropriate. And when you are comforting that at least the post-revolutionary generation perceives the railroad again a little positive, the train manager comes and throws grammar schools from the passenger to pick them up their parents by car.

Rarely, the purely local report resonates on the Czech Internet as the incident from the end of June, when the ČD conductor excluded students returning from the trip in Zelená Lhota in Šumava. The carrier’s argument was that twenty pupils were an organized group to report in advance and neglected this obligation. Subsequent discussion in detail has dismantled all aspects of transport of groups and regulations of the carrier, although perhaps somewhat neglect the wider consequences of a similar approach of carriers and their employees of the first contact.

Is a prescription

Under both articles on this website, the finished dispute on the topic of transport conditions and their jurisdiction were pulled down. This issue for the vast majority of passengers is not really easily digestible – even less on the P24 line from Železná Ruda to Klatovy, where only the tariff IDPK or Oneneticket applies to the internal routes.

Both of these tariffs have their transport conditions, covered with Czech Railways’ transport conditions “… Appropriately only if the transport conditions do not solve the systems.” Well… well. This is 99 pages of reading, just to find out whose rules actually apply – and hoped employees would have the same interpretation.

Article 7.5 of the IDPK shipping conditions tells us that “On the trains of the Czech Railways carrier, it is possible to book places for seating and bicycles for groups of persons in the number of 20 to 99 passengers within the ordering system of group transport on the trains of Czech Railways.”

The attentive reader noticed that there is no obligation to reserve from these SPPs. Followed by seventeen paragraphs of detailing the particulars of group reservations, where we read, among other things “ČD reserves the right to refuse the order if it cannot be secured for operational reasons.” So then what if the order is not a binding step for passengers?

To understand each other, group reserves are a good thing in general: carriers give Echo about the possible onslaught and the organizer of the mass action partial peace in the soul, especially for connections, where you can get seats. During my life I organized a lot of such transports and I have always taken it as a gentleman’s agreement: additional efforts related to ordering, waiting for approval, buying tickets using special code, etc. It is balanced by a significantly lower price fare.

But then we move to the world of integrated transport, where the group reports only work without any savings. Someone has to fill in the form, wait for the carrier’s approval, take the transaction code as it using it at the ČD box office or in the e-shop at least 48 hours before the trip to buy tickets that can no longer be returned. It will be the same as individual tickets five minutes before departure and if someone gets sick at the last minute, his ticket will be forfeited.

It should be added that although the ČD system has the most sophisticated groups ordering the system of all carriers, they absolutely do not guarantee real strengthening of the sets. The client pays for one regiofox, and if the second fox is not at hand, the capacity of the train will still be the same.

I see you, you are a group!

So we already know that the IDPK tariff offers groups, but does not require, and that passengers do not motivate much to do so. But now the question arises as to what the group actually defines. The transport conditions IDPK and ČD are silent on this issue – it is not good enough.

When I enter the full connection of Prague Esk in the morning, I meet the same students every day, commuting to Prague for teaching. Many of them have exactly the same route for exactly the same school, but no one is forcing them to bother in advance, even if they are literally sitting on the stairs.

When the corporate event in the Beskydy Mountains ended and some people want to get home by train, even if everyone goes elsewhere and for their own ticket, and the only common section of our journey is just the first motorbike, are we organized?

And when the teen class returns from Šumava, each together with their own ticket (otherwise it is not possible in IDPK), are they automatically a group? The ČD train manager decided that yes, and therefore did not allow any of them to go.

I remind you that although we do not know the detailed circumstances of the incident, according to all available information, the train in the green Lhota was not full – probably even free sitting places, although not enough for everyone. This is quite common.

The carrier tries to defend his procedure by reporting other groups in the Nazis stops in the connection, so it was necessary to keep some of the places free for them. We will pass away now that only five stops remain from Lhota to Klatovy, and let us focus on what this logic means for other waiting passengers in Dešenice or Nýrsko. Will an individual heading to Klatov will also be rejected? Or a family of four? A eight -member bunch of tourists? Where exactly is the limit of one who still deserves to be on the train when all of these people pay exactly the same fare?

And finally: According to one quoted student, the train driver said “That he could not take on the fact that the group would split and that people would stand on the train.” Of course, someone asked that “groups”how does he see it with the division? Only some of the students strictly rushed to the connection in Klatovy. Perhaps there would be a compromise solution if the old school instinct did not wake up first. Passengers are easier to throw from public transport.

Employees Attention: thin ice

A considerable group of railway employees who have hung up Klatovská trainers and proudly claim the rejection of the groups themselves entered the discussions under previous articles. Even in the least I do not want to organize a public lynch for one conductor, because I know that in a tense situation and under time pressure it is simply instinctively easier to reach for a prescription. But I have a more general warning for all employees of the first contact, who are under the regulation completely uncritically: when someone already put a saw in your hand, be careful which branch you cut.

Of course, the organizer of the Pilsen Integrated Transport is disgusted by the event, because the failed transport of the only school class in a flash erased a piece of heavily built public transport reputation in the region. Gymnasists and their families will remember it as a bitterly funny story and readers of national media who still live in that pub belief in the backward dysfunctional regional railway, are freshly confirmed in prejudice.

Above all, however: whenever there is talk of stopping traffic on some local and replacing trains with cheaper buses, “Tourists” They act on regional politicians as a spell. After all, the railway is the more reliable, more friendly, more stable option – unlike the bus, it will carry prams and bikes, unlike minibuses, it will not surprise the school class. The train will save cyclists, who suddenly spoiled the storm, as well as a bunch of hikers who were running out of power. We pay for Regiofox taxes as some extra luxury so that we do not have to look for bicycles and difficult to look for parking in the PLA. So we don’t have to rent a bus because of a banal trip. So that we do not get stuck in the green Lhota when we just suddenly meet more.

However, we will only perceive this dearly paid value when the railway actually fulfills these functions. And the customers are not really enough for the wheels to spin and the lights are shining.

Juraj Kováč

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