Prague’s Transport Evolution: A Conversation with Jan Barchanek, DPP Transport Director

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Welcome to the Mobility Redefined Podcast, where we explore governance, strategy, and innovation shaping how cities and metropolitan regions are moving. I am Dr. Kaan Yildizgoz and today I am delighted to welcome Jan Barchanek, Chief Operations Officer and board member of Prague Public Transport Company. The company is also known as DPP, Dopravní podnik Prahy, one of Central Europe's most storied and technically sophisticated urban transport operators. Jan, thank you so much for joining Mobility Redefined today.

Thank you, Kaan. Thank you all for the invitation to this podcast. And I'm quite happy to hear you and to talk with you again.

Thank you. Thank you. Jan, we have known each other for almost 20 years now. It's always a pleasure to work together with you, Jan, and now you are playing a significant managerial role in a multimodal transport operator. And I know that you started your career all in public transport. You spent many years in this industry. And maybe, just before we go into the discussion in terms of the details of public transport topics in Praha, if you can give a little bit of background about yourself, because that's an interesting career, starting from the bottom and going up to now take the full operational responsibility in Praha.

Yes, thank you. I studied at Czech Technical University, in the Transportation Sciences programme. So it's a good background for me. And during my studies I had cooperation with our company, with DPP, for my diploma work on bus priority. And during my studies I got the possibility to cooperate on the organisation of the International Monetary Fund meeting in Prague, so on the bus services for the people attending this big event.

After that I got the possibility to lead the Quality department for the whole company, for all parts, metro, trams and buses. And again I got the possibility to go back to buses, and I was responsible for developing projects for the buses, for the new vehicles, for electrification, for the testing of different electric vehicles in buses.

So now I am responsible not only for buses, but also for trams, for Metro operations, and all the staff in operations. Not for maintenance, but for the operational side. So, in very few words, quite an interesting.

Quite a good, quite an impressive career in a public transport agency, in a city like Prague. And one question. What I always think when I'm travelling to Prague, or when I've talked in the past with other colleagues from DPP, is the challenge and uniqueness of governing and running a historic city's transit system. I myself started my career at Metro Istanbul, and it was very interesting, I guess it's similar in Prague as well. It was very interesting: whenever we were trying to construct a new metro line, each stage of the construction turned into a new episode, like an Indiana Jones movie, in a historic city like Istanbul. I know you have these challenges too, and Prague's network must balance a remarkable historic urban fabric with modern urban mobility demands. So how do you ensure the network continues to evolve within those boundaries?

I have to say that I'm quite proud to be involved in public transport in Praha, in Praha city, and responsible for connecting people, not only daily commuters, but also all the foreigners, all the visitors of Praha. And it's a combination of the history, a combination of the profile of the city, because we have narrow streets, we have a historical city which is protected, and we also have hilly terrain, not so much space for cars, especially for parking. So it's a big advantage for public transport that people were already using public transport before, and there isn't so much space for cars. So we are happy about that, but we have to provide quite efficient and also quite high-capacity public transport. So in some cases there is a trade-off in how to prepare such high-capacity public transport, how to build it, as you mentioned in Istanbul, the same situation when we prepare the metro, when we prepare some tram tracks. There are also different brownfield areas we are working in. In Praha there are new tram tracks and new housing areas, so there are a lot of challenges but also a lot of nice possibilities for how to work with transport and also with urban planning, and also to protect the heritage of Praha. So it's not easy to combine, and it's quite a big and quite important part of Prague public transport. It's supported by the city, because one of the key parts of this very good public transport is financial support from the city. So we have quite good support, not depending on the political parties, left or right, we have good support, especially on the finance side, especially for cheap fares. So when you come to Prague, the fares are quite cheap. So it's quite easy to.

I would call it affordable.

Yes.

I think that's what you are doing in Prague as well.

Yeah, we try to do, and we try to offer this public transport easy to use for the people. And of course, it's sometimes a little bit difficult for the budget.

Yeah, it's difficult. Now, I mean the municipal budgets or authority budgets are under pressure, especially after COVID-19, but they also want to offer public transport as a mode of choice, in an affordable way. It's a very difficult job that you are doing there, from this perspective, Jan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we try, our company and also the authority and the coordinator, ROPID, try to operate very efficient public transport, not only during the day, during the peak period, but also on weekdays and during the night, night transport. So we are not operating the metro during the night, but we are offering tram and bus services to each part of Praha. So it's quite good, and in my opinion there's no need to have a car when you are living in Praha.

So that's the most important thing, how we can replace the need to use a car. And at the same time, I know that you are also preparing your network and your fleet for the future. From this angle, what I know is that DPP has been on an ambitious electrification path. Where does Praha stand today in terms of this transition of your fleet, in terms of decarbonisation?

Yes, I remember the challenges you were facing because of the river, causing issues in your metro network, in the metro stations and so on. It's very challenging from this perspective, not only being a historic city, but also because of this natural factor. I see what you are telling me. And not only electrification, I know that you are putting a lot of focus into technology deployment and digitalisation. Where are you on this, here in Prague?

Certainly, certainly. And I also imagine that, as a multimodal operator, technology helps you a lot in terms of an integrated and seamless experience for passengers. When I talk about integration, I'm talking beyond ticketing. How does integration look today in Prague, in terms of public transport?

Now you say that it's the work of many people. I think that gives me very good grounds for my next question. I was planning to ask you about your view on the workforce in a changing environment. Public transport employs around 13 million people around the world, and I know big city operators are sometimes the largest employers in their cities. I don't know the case of Praha, for example, if I look at Brussels or Amsterdam, the local public transport operators are the largest employers there. I'm sure DPP is one of the largest employers in the city as well. As technology reshapes operations, how is DPP managing the human side of this transformation? That's very important, skill development, training, and bringing your people along on the journey. And what leadership lessons have you drawn from managing change at this scale?

Yes, our company has about 11,000 people, so it's the biggest employer in Prague, and one of the biggest in the Czech Republic. So you are right about that. Human resources are quite important, and we would be nothing without our people. We depend on our people, and even the driverless metro is not a peopleless metro. For us, that's perfect.

Perfect headline for us, the driverless metro is not the peopleless metro.

Yes. For us it's quite important to work with people, and one good example is that during the electrification of the buses, we used internal experience, experience from our tram colleagues. So we used their information, we used their experience, but we also had to train people, we had to train people from mechanics to electromechanics, we had to train people from the bus depots. And we have a subsidiary company, a training school, which is quite important for us, and we use it for these training programmes.

Oh, you have a company that's a training school, correct?

Yes, it's a subsidiary company, which is a school, and which is also open to pupils in the middle part of their education, from 15 to 19, but also open to us, to our employees, no matter how old they are. And it helps us to educate them and to increase their qualifications, especially in the electric field, but also in other areas. So cooperation is also important for us today, with other schools, with universities. It's quite important to reach people as soon as possible, when a new graduate is spotted at university. It's important for us, especially for new projects, and of course there's always discussion about whether we have enough drivers or not. So there's always discussion about salaries and other benefits, we have labour unions, and we discuss salaries and benefits with them every year. Our labour turnover is quite good compared to other Czech employers. So there are a lot of different solutions, a lot of different parts, and it's quite important to work with people, because especially in technical roles there is quite a significant shortage in the market.

Jan, thank you for sharing your insights on managing one of Central Europe's most complex public transport networks. Before we close, what is one message you would leave with Mobility Redefined listeners looking to build systems that are not just technically advanced, but genuinely resilient and people-centric?

For me it's quite important, we are developing a lot of new technology, a lot of new systems, but don't forget the passengers. That's quite important for us, because we need to keep it simple, useful and easy to use for passengers. So don't forget your passengers.

Thank you, thank you. That's a very good conclusion, Jan. Thank you once again for being a guest on this episode of Mobility Redefined. And thanks to our listeners for joining and listening to this episode of Mobility Redefined. Looking forward to coming together for the next episode as well.

Thank you very much, all, and you'll be very welcome when you come to Prague. Thank you.

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