Shortage of lorry parking spaces poses a risk to road safety. There is a shortage of almost 1,900 spaces on Czech motorways
PRESS RELEASE ON AUDIT NO 24/18 – 10 November 2025
Between 2015 and last year, lorry traffic on Czech motorways increased by 35%. This growth has brought a corresponding demand for parking spaces. However, there is a shortage of them at motorway rest areas. As revealed by an audit carried out by the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) focusing on this issue, by the end of 2024 the Czech Republic was short of 1,898 lorry parking spaces. This shortage threatens road safety, as drivers are forced to park outside designated areas. Government targets for building parking areas for lorries have not been met. Nor has the government’s goal of introducing an information system showing available spaces at rest areas been met. The SAO also found that the Road and Motorway Directorate (RMD) failed to take effective action to amend or terminate disadvantageous outdated lease agreements with operators of petrol stations and refreshment facilities at rest areas, which have long reduced the revenues of the RMD.
The government instructed the Ministry of Transport (MoT) to create a total of 1,500 new parking spaces for freight transport by 2023. However, by that year, only 407 spaces had been built on the existing motorway network. By the end of 2024, the RMD kept a record of a total of 144 rest areas on Czech motorways, providing 3,485 lorry parking spaces.
The shortage of parking spaces has a negative impact on safety. Drivers, who are required to observe regular safety breaks and rest periods, are then forced to choose between two offences: either failing to take their mandatory break, or parking in a location that endangers the safety and flow of traffic. For instance, at the “D1 Pávov Right” rest area, which has 15 parking spaces, an average working day in 2022 saw as many as 59 additional lorries parked there. A similar situation occurred at other rest areas along the D1 motorway. The MoT has not implemented effective measures to address this shortage.
The government’s goal of introducing an information system has also not been achieved. Although it was supposed to be implemented by 2020, at the time of the SAO audit (i.e. at the turn of 2024 and 2025), the information system displaying available lorry parking spaces, including the option to reserve a space, was still not publicly accessible. Nor have the measures set out in the “Freight Transport Concept”1 to enhance safety and protection of lorry parking spaces — such as fencing, CCTV systems, or equipping rest areas with ramps for removing snow and ice from lorries — been implemented. Only one rest area in the Czech Republic is currently equipped with such a ramp, even though snow or ice accumulation on lorry trailers poses a significant road safety risk. By contrast, Poland has a total of thirteen such ramps. Measures aimed at improving the facilities at rest areas have also not been met. A comparison with Poland showed, among other things, that Czech rest areas are less well equipped and less secure, and that rental income from them is lower.
None of the Priority Rest Areas Were Built
The SAO audit examined the preparation for the construction of 74 new or expanded motorway rest areas, for which the RMD spent a total of CZK 441 million between 2018 and 2024. The audit found that in twenty-one cases, preparation was suspended or completely stopped. The plan also included 18 priority rest areas, identified by the RMD as the most urgently needed and listed in the “Motorway Rest Area Concept” approved by the MoT. These were scheduled for completion by 2023. However, at the time of the SAO audit, not a single one had been built. Preparation for 10 of them had not been completed, and work on the remaining eight had been entirely abandoned. As a result, part of the financial resources was used ineffectively.
Outdated Contracts Reduce RMD Revenues
When reviewing the operation of existing rest areas, the SAO found that 35 of the 73 still-valid outdated lease agreements with operators of petrol stations, refreshment facilities, etc., dating back to the 1990s, do not contain an inflation clause. Such a clause should increase rent in line with inflation. In some contracts, rent levels are linked to exchange rates of the German mark or Austrian schilling, and later to the euro. Due to the absence of an inflation clause and the strengthening of the Czech koruna, the RMD’s income from these contracts was lower at the time of the SAO audit compared to when the contracts were first signed. While in the 1990s the annual income from these 35 contracts amounted to CZK 17.5 million, by 2024 it was CZK 16.9 million. Despite this, the RMD failed to take effective action to amend or terminate these disadvantageous agreements. By contrast, rent at newly opened rest areas is up to 28 times higher. A comparison of the lowest and highest rental revenues from petrol station operators in 2024 illustrates this disparity: while under a contract without an inflation clause the RMD collected just over CZK 246,000, under a 2020 contract it earned more than CZK 6.8 million.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office
1] “Freight Transport Concept for the Period 2017–2023 with an Outlook to 2030”, a document approved by Resolution No 57 of the Government of the Czech Republic on 25 January 2017.