POSSIBILITIES OF DEVELOPMENT OF RAILWAY SIDINGS IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC

Railway sidings are currently one of important part of the railway operation and their uses directly influence the position of railways in the transport market. Without the support for railway siding operation it is impossible to develop the railway freight transport and then fulfil the objectives of European Commission, which are presented in the "White Paper - Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system". Trend of the interest in the rail transport has been decreasing for last 25 years and this fact influences the transport volume in railway siding operation. 25 years ago Slovak economy changed from a planned to a market economy and since then the number of active railway sidings has been decreasing continually. Therefore it is necessary to find effective methods for support and development of railway transport in the Slovak Republic. In the Slovak Republic there are many railway sidings which have an active licence for operation but have no transport performance in the railway transport. There are several reasons for this situation, but the most important ones are financial requirements for railway siding operation, prices in railway freight transport and routing of freight flows, too Elimination of these adverse factors is presented herein. This paper is focused on the possibilities of development of railway sidings operation in the Slovak Republic. The article contains analysis operations conditions of railway sidings as well as the position of railway sidings in the railway freight transport, and their influence on the performance of the railway transport. In the article there are presented factors of gradual performance decline and proposals for development of railway sidings operation.