České dráhy (English: Czech Railways), often shortened to ČD, is the major railway operator in the Czech Republic providing regional and long-distance services. The company was established in January 1993, shortly after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, as a successor of the Czechoslovak State Railways. It is a member of the International Railway Union (UIC Country Code for the Czech Republic is 54), Community of European Railways and the Organization for Railway Cooperation (Asia and Europe). With twenty-four thousand employees ČD Group is the fifth largest Czech company by the number of employees. History During the 1990s, there was a noticeable drop in railway traffic throughout the Czech Republic, a phenomenon that coincided with a massive expansion in road transport. Seeking to halt, or even partially reverse, this trend, substantial efforts were made to restructure and modernise the railways and their operation. One such measure was the establishment of České dráhy as a joint stock company in January 2003; soon thereafter, various subsidiaries were created that focused on various sectors, such as research, telecommunications, and rolling stock maintenance. Officials were keen to reduce the organisation's losses and to make it a commercially competitive venture, thus numerous reforms were implemented around this time, which included the centralisation of some activities (such as purchasing and internal stocking) while other activities were outsourced to third parties to increase efficiency. There was a general trend towards reducing employee headcount while various new technologies were brought in. For the second phase of this restructuring, on 1 December 2007, České dráhy spun off its freight operations into the newly established ČD Cargo, which remained a wholly-owned subsidiary of České dráhy. Prior to 1 July 2008, České dráhy was the biggest employer in the Czech Republic. Prior to the late 2000s, the organisation had historically incurred losses as a matter of routine, thus necessitating the provision of subsidies from the Czech government. However, during 2007, České dráhy recorded a profit of 53 million crowns (€2.1 million), which was the first time the company had recorded a profit in its history. Despite this milestone, České dráhy has continued to receive government subsidies and undergo periodic reforms with the aim of cutting costs to become a routinely profitable operating concern. Measures aimed at increasing operating efficiency have spanned various aspects of the organisation. During January 2008, plans to transfer passenger transport operations to an independent subsidiary were met with approval