Superconnector: Proposal for Czech High-Speed Rail Lines—Revised Version as of July 2026

Summary

The Puls Institute, founded by Petr Kalaš, Adam Panenka, and Martin Hausenblas, advocates a vision of prosperity for the Czech Republic based on its central location in Europe; in particular, it strives to establish the Czech Republic as a transportation, energy, and data hub.

Current plans for high-speed rail lines in the Czech Republic do not connect all regions and propose a single high-speed connection to Germany via Dresden. In our view, such a design does not fully utilize the potential of connecting to the economically strong regions of Bavaria and does not create a “crossroads of Europe.”

The document further develops the high-speed rail proposal by the Ministry of Transport and the Railway Administration so that it meets a set of expanded conditions, including connecting all regional capitals to Prague and Brno via high-speed rail within one hour. The goal is for this connection to be competitive with travel by car while also linking all major cross-border transportation routes. The initial infrastructure proposal already takes into account the infrastructure requirements necessary for regular-interval service and ensures direct connections to airports to facilitate synergy between rail and air transport. In addition to high-speed lines, the document also proposes improvements to certain existing lines to connect additional areas and link regional centers with one another. It is essential to rapidly construct the entire network by 2035, given the potential for significant savings resulting from the project’s scale and as a countermeasure to mitigate the impact of rising construction costs.

The aim of this document is to create a basis for a cost-benefit analysis of the benefits of high-speed rail lines under various scenarios (no construction at all, the Railway Administration’s proposal, and the Superconnector proposal) as an argument for securing funding, and to compare the impact of different project implementation methods on construction costs. We have chosen the construction of rail lines in Spain as a model, where lines are built cheaply and quickly.

According to the Puls Institute, the total proposed length of lines to be built is 1,179 kilometers, of which 851 kilometers are high-speed lines and 328 kilometers are new lines in the lower-speed segment. The Railway Administration’s proposal is for 600–800 km.

The total investment costs at 2023 prices, using the Spanish construction project management methodology, amount to 850 billion CZK (according to available information, the Railway Administration’s variant is 1 trillion CZK). The project management method thus has a fundamental impact on total investment costs. Adopting this methodology therefore allows for the construction of the entire network at costs lower than those cited by the Railway Administration for the planned section.

The number of residents for whom traveling from regional capitals to Prague or Brno by rail is more attractive than by car—even without construction—is 700,000; according to the SŽ proposal, this figure rises to 3.75 million, and according to the Puls Institute’s proposal, it exceeds 5.5 million. The high-speed line connecting Munich and Nuremberg with Prague in under 2 hours has the greatest impact on accessibility and GDP transfer potential. 

The resulting design has been developed into a master plan. For Prague, the master plan’s impact on the quality of connections with major surrounding centers has been analyzed, with GDP—the economic output generated by each center—used as a measure of the attractiveness of these connections. For each region, the master plan’s impact on travel times between regions has been analyzed. For each such route, the potential of this connection is quantified, along with an assessment of whether it can be successfully shifted to rail.

These figures are calculated for the current state, the state of rail development according to SŽ, and the expanded proposal by the Puls Institute.

The conclusion of the document models the impact on time savings for passenger transport within Europe, the potential for the number of one-day-trip connections, and the potential for GDP transfer across all three scenarios.