Transport in Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia was one of Europe's major transit countries for north-south movement. As of 1985, Czechoslovakia had:

a highly developed transport system consisting of 13,130 kilometres (8,160 mi) of railway tracks, 73,809 kilometres (45,863 mi) of roads, and 475 kilometres (295 mi) of inland waterways, according to official sources.
1,448 kilometres (900 mi) of pipelines for transport of crude oil, 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) for refined products, and 7,500 kilometres (4,700 mi) for natural gas.
a total cargo movement of over 99 billion ton-kilometres
of the nearly 90 billion ton-kilometres of cargo-carrying service performed by public transport, railways handled about 81%, roads 13%, inland waterways 5%, and civil aviation less than 1%.

The state owned and subsidized the means of transport, and passenger fares were among the lowest in the world.

Major improvements were made in the transport infrastructure after World War II, particularly with regard to the railways, and the result was a relatively extensive and dense road and railway network. In developing the transport system, the government's primary goal was to facilitate movement of industrial goods; passenger traffic, while not neglected, received secondary consideration. Nevertheless, in the 1980s transport frequently was a bottleneck in the economy because of low operating efficiency and long-term inadequate investment. In the mid-1980s, both rail and highway transport systems were in need of substantial upgrading. Although the shortcomings of the systems were well known and received considerable public attention, limited funding slowed the pace of improvement. Since the 1970s, in an effort to save fuel, the government had been encouraging the displacement of goods transport from the highways to the railways.