State-owned České dráhy beat private challenger RegioJet by CZK 18.5bn (EUR 770m) for thirty years of suburban rail in Prague and Central Bohemia. The winner must now buy at least 66 new trains to run the service, and its owner has just installed a chief whose first task is debt.
By Dan Jensen
Lenka Hamplová takes over as chief executive on 1 September. The Central Bohemian regional assembly votes on the contract six days later, on 7 September, and Prague's city council still has to approve it. Two cases sit with the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS): a challenge from Stadler Praha to the train order, and a complaint against the 30-year term itself..
A contract of that length settles a market for a generation. It also decides who pays for the trains, and in this tender the answer is the operator.
What the bid contained
The two authorities awarded the contract on 6 August for thirty years of operation from 2030. České dráhy bid CZK 165.17bn (EUR 6.86bn), RegioJet CZK 183.65bn (EUR 7.63bn), against an estimated value of CZK 142bn (EUR 5.90bn).
RegioJet did not object before the deadline of 21 August.
The authorities wrote the specification for the trains: two-system units for 3 kV DC and 25 kV AC, 160 km/h, at least 380 seats, low-floor. They did not buy them. The bidder had to arrive with a fleet of its own.
The train order
České dráhy launched that procurement in April 2025, sixteen months before it knew whether it would win the service. The framework runs to 133 EMU 400 units, with 66 guaranteed, at an estimated CZK 84.54bn (EUR 3.51bn) excluding VAT. That figure covers the units, a list of spare parts and full service for up to thirty years, in two 15-year blocks the company can take or leave.
The first units are due in service from the December 2029 timetable. Škoda Group won the award with a bid of CZK 36.39bn (EUR 1.51bn) against Stadler’s CZK 38.66bn (EUR 1.61bn). The public record does not set out what those bid prices cover, so they cannot be read against the framework’s estimated value.
Stadler Praha took the award to ÚOHS, which has been running a first-instance proceeding since late July on the choice of supplier and an allegedly abnormally low price. A separate complaint, from a party the region says it does not know, challenges the 30-year term of the operating contract.
The two files carry different weight. The Stadler case is a live first-instance proceeding. On the complaint against the 30-year term, ÚOHS said in August that it was looking at the submission and had opened no proceeding.
Only the live case bears on the service. Signature of the 30-year contract with Prague and Central Bohemia depends on the train purchase, Czech Radio reported in August. On that account a dispute over the fleet stops the operating contract, and everything that can go wrong with the fleet stays with the company.
The mandate for the new chief
Dan Ťok, deputy chair of the supervisory board, said the new chief’s main task is to slow the growth of the company’s debt. Transport minister Ivan Bednárik expects her to cut unnecessary costs, above all at head-office level, and reminded the company that it operates in a competitive environment.
Lenka Hamplová has worked at the ministry since 2008. She ran its internal audit and control from 2017 to 2020, has sat on the České dráhy audit committee since 2017 and on its supervisory board from 2021 to 2024, and has headed the ministry’s economics and infrastructure section since 2023.
The mandate lands on the same arithmetic as the train order. The bid came in CZK 23bn (EUR 960m) above the authorities’ estimate and CZK 18.5bn under the rival’s. Whatever margin exists over thirty years lies in the operator’s own costs, and the owner has told the new chief where to look.
Nothing in the public record says how České dráhy will pay for 66 to 133 trains.
How Stuttgart divides the risk
Verband Region Stuttgart opened its S-Bahn competition in August on different terms. The contract runs fifteen years from 2035, for about 14.3 million train-kilometres a year. Applications are due on 15 September and the award is expected in early 2028.
The bidder prices the operation and nothing else. The authority makes 66 used class 430 units available to the future operator and is negotiating with DB Regio for a further 89. It plans to procure at least 60 new trains itself. The contract is a gross contract, so the financial risk sits with the authority.
Westphalia puts a long horizon on the supplier instead. Siemens Mobility signed a full-service agreement of up to 30 years with Rock Rail in June for 61 battery trains ordered for the Westfalen-Lippe local transport authority (NWL), tying the manufacturer to the fleet for its working life.
Meanwhile the supply side is thinning. Only two manufacturers prequalified for the high-speed order at Comboios de Portugal (CP) in August. An operator that must arrive with its own fleet is choosing from a shorter list, on terms the list sets.
The next decisions
Prague’s city council has yet to vote. The Central Bohemian assembly votes on 7 September. ÚOHS has given no date for the Stadler case. Verband Region Stuttgart closes its application stage on 15 September.
On that reported account, a contract for thirty years of service waits on a regulator’s ruling about who builds the trains. That is what the model produces when the operator has to arrive with its own fleet: the authorities own the service, the operator owns the risk.