SaS Slams Kosice Train Station Over Safety and Outdated Control System

Kosice/Bratislava, 27 April (TASR) – The opposition's Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) criticises the technical state of the railway station in Kosice, saying the state invested in its appearance but neglected what the party considers most important — safety, capacity and modern traffic management, TASR learnt on Monday. SaS representative Peter Bathory said traffic control at one of Slovakia's most important railway hubs is still based on a signalling system dating from 1972. "We are talking about a system that was already obsolete at the time it was created. Even today, operations still rely heavily on the human factor, telephone instructions and manual control. With such a volume of traffic, this is dangerous and irresponsible," Bathory said. SaS is calling on the Transport Ministry and the railway infrastructure owner ZSR to immediately present a plan for genuine modernisation of the railway hub. The party claims that key operational problems were not addressed during the extensive reconstruction of the station and that modernisation focused mainly on visible parts of the project. "The state invested in what can be seen in photographs, but not in what determines safety, traffic flow and the station's day-to-day functioning," Bathory added. According to SaS regional chair Peter Cech, the Kosice station symbolises how public funds are often managed in Slovakia. "In the last nine railway projects, the difference between the estimated contract value and the final tendered price was about 230 million euros. That is money that could have been used to modernise stations, signalling systems and critical hubs. Instead, we have expensive projects and old problems," Cech said. SaS member and Kosice deputy mayor Marcel Giboda pointed to the need to increase railway safety also with respect to the expected rise in traffic intensity due to the presence of the Volvo car plant near Kosice. mf