Prague, the capital of Czech Republic, covers an area of 496 km2, and its population is around 1 170 000 inhabitants.

During the night of the 13th to 14th August 2002, tram tracks and underground lines situated in lower parts of the city were flooded.

Post-flood day 1 (14/08/2002)

Many parts of the public transport system were damaged :

Underground : 28 stations of which 17 flooded, 17 km of tracks (33% of the total network).

Trams : about 30 km of tracks were flooded or out of service (25% of the total network).

The priority was to provide information about public transport services : information about current reroutings on the underground and tram network was available as early on as the afternoon of the 14th August.

Post-flood day 3 (16/08/2002)

A railway shuttle service was introduced by Czech Railways to provide a link between the left and the right banks of the river Vltava.

Passenger information about transport reroutings was updated, published and disseminated on a daily basis. It was communicated by traffic controllers, information officiers, ticket inspectors and even by office staff.

Network maps were distributed and displayed at interchange stations, public transport stops, closed underground stations, shop windows and other public buildings.

On all trams, messages in Czech, English and German were provided through load speakers, providing information about underground sections out of service and about the current public transport situation.

Post-flood day 6 (19/08/2002)

Bus services were introduced to substitute the C line of the underground, and operated from the northern part of the city via the city centre to underground stations still in service. During the night of the 18th to the 19th August, 14 km of newly introduced bus lanes were marked out.

Post-flood day 7 (20/08/2002)

By this time, underground sections out of service had been substituted by tram lines.

During the flood, access to the city centre was prohibited for cars. Most of the bridges over the Vltava were available for public transport and pedestrians only.

Prague public transport services were provided free of charge between the 14th and the 25th August 2002. The efficiency of the public transport solutions proposed was confirmed during the flood and the post-flood period. Prague citizens declared to be in favour of a number of such measures, even for future use.

In addition to ensuring public transport services, it was vital to repair damage to infrastructure. The work required involved :

• pumping out water from flooded stations (in total 1.6 mil. m3 of water was pumped out),
• cleaning and disinfecting individual stations in various stages (total area of 900,000 m2),
• starting the repair and replacement of damaged machinery and equipment (power supplies, lighting, pumping of underground waters, escalators, service rooms, etc.),
• reconstructing the rail track substructure and superstructure, cable ducts, underground protection system, etc.

The traffic was fully reopened on :

• 19th November 2002 for the C line,
• 20th December 2002 for the A line,
• 30th March 2003 for the B line.

In total, repair work took 9 months.

The cost of repairing damage and reopening infrastructure to traffic is estimated at CZK 7 billion.