The Petřín Funicular Returns on 22 September, and the Fare Rises to a Hundred Crowns

The Petřín funicular carries passengers again from Tuesday 22 September. DPP announced the date on 10 September: the new fourth-generation cars leave Újezd and Petřín on the regular timetable at 7am, the line runs daily until 10.15pm, and departures are every ten minutes. This is trial operation with passengers rather than a formal handover, which is the normal way a rebuilt cable railway comes back.

The gap is almost exactly two years. The previous, third-generation funicular ran for the last time on 13 September 2024, when heavy rain finished off a track bed that had been in poor condition for years. DPP was already preparing a complete rebuild at that point, so the emergency closure simply ran straight into the planned one.

What was actually rebuilt

Very little of the old line survives. Zdopravy.cz reports that the original track structure was removed over almost half a kilometre — practically all of it. Because the Petřín slope is unstable, the contractor built five walls of reinforced-concrete micropiles sunk 10 to 15 metres. The new track is a single massive reinforced-concrete slab carrying new drainage, new sewerage and a new permanent way, together with a new Abt passing loop at the midpoint. Metrostav DIZ won that contract at 134 million crowns before VAT.

The two cars are new as well, and they are the fourth generation to work the hill. DPP paid 137.7 million crowns for the pair, to a design by the studio Anna Marešová designers. The sources differ on who built them: Zdopravy.cz credits the Doppelmayr/Garaventa group in Switzerland, while Prague Morning names the Swiss manufacturer CWA Constructions SA. Each car is 12.3 metres long with four separate compartments. On Zdopravy.cz's figures that is 19 seats plus room for up to a hundred standing passengers; Prague Morning puts total capacity at 120, against 100 in the old cars. Both describe extensive glazing, and Prague Morning adds that there is no air conditioning — the cars use forced-air ventilation. One detail is pure theatre: as the two cars pass at mid-track, a lighting effect makes them wink at each other.

The cars were placed on the finished track in April and ran verification and test trips from May, while technicians tuned the control and traffic systems and the brakes, and worked through braking and homologation tests.

The fare is the change most passengers will notice

A single paper ticket now costs 100 crowns instead of 60. In the PID Lítačka app it is 90 crowns — a new ticket type that required an interface change, which is why the app had to be updated.

The new 90-crown ticket is part of an app update we are releasing this week. The update is needed because this is a new ticket type, which requires a small change to the UI. The app is currently in approval for the App Store and Google Play and will reach users gradually during this week.

— Vladimír Antonin Bláha, spokesman for the city company OICT, speaking to Zdopravy.cz

Long-term PID coupons remain valid on the funicular, as do one-day and three-day tickets; the ordinary 30- and 90-minute tickets do not. Prague Morning also lists children under 15 and people over 65 as travelling free. And Nebozízek changes character: cars will stop at the intermediate station only on the way up.

Step-free access is a separate project, and it is late

In June the city approved the intention of making all three stations step-free, at an estimated 80 million crowns before VAT. Újezd is to get two lifts along with a rebuilt exit structure and entrance vestibule, and Nebozízek a lift beside its existing staircase. Petřín station gets no lift at all: DPP instead plans a new side entrance and exit in the station's south wall, giving level access from the Rose Garden straight into the lower compartment of the new cars.

Design work is meant to start this year, with construction in 2029 and 2030, phased so that the funicular can keep running. That is the part worth keeping in view. The line reopens next week with new cars, a new slab and a fare two-thirds higher, and a passenger who cannot manage steps waits another four years at least.