News

Russian Railways’ new tariff policies attracted more than 6 million tons in additional freight

Within the framework of the tariff corridor, Russian Railways took 47 decisions in 2017 which have resulted in an additional freight volume in the amount of 6.1 million tons and extra revenues of 7.8 billion roubles.

This was announced by Alexey Shilo, the Director for Commercial Activities at Russian Railways and the Managing Director of the Centre for Corporate Transport Services.

Shilo was speaking during the final meeting of the Company Board this year.

He also noted that for the first time within the framework of the tariff corridor mechanism, decisions have been prepared which are aimed at long-term cooperation with shippers.

This is very important, for example, in order to preserve the transportation volume of petroleum products by rail. Alexey Shilo also stressed that implementing the principles of customer orientation and flexible tariff policy and coordinating and developing transport and logistics competencies had allowed the Company to achieve significant growth in loading volumes.

The volume of freight loading in 2017 is thus expected to reach 1.258 billion tons, 3% more than in the previous year.

"This year was very interesting in that we increased the volume of coal shipments in favourable market conditions on world markets and achieved a record volume of export shipments amounting to almost 193 million tons.

Grain shipments also saw dynamic growth. In order to make export markets more accessible to regions remote from seaports, in late September Russian Railways decided to grant a discount on the transportation of grain from a number of regions in Russia’s Central, Volga and Siberian Federal Districts.

In order to transport the harvest, technical conditions for the transportation of grain using various types of rolling stock and containers and faster routes to the terminals at the ports were developed, said Shilo. The Russian Railways’ Director for Commercial Activities added that improving the reliability and speed of delivery not only resulted in an increase in the transportation volumes of the raw materials segment, but also of finished products.

During the current year, freight loading volumes in the II tariff class are expected to increase by 2.8% compared to 2016, while the III tariff class is forecast to come in 1.9% higher.

To simplify access to transportation services which handle freight shipped by rail and their payment, the Electronic Trading Platform "Freight Transport" was also launched.

"The Platform operates as an aggregator of service offers from all participants in the freight delivery chain. The order is agreed and the payment made in real time. The client monitors all stages of the order’s execution from his own office. The services of the Electronic Trading Platform are used by about 1,700 customers every month," said Aleksey Shilo.

Another important element in the Company’s digital sales channels was the Unified Call Centre for Freight Transportation, which started in November 2017. The number of client requests has already exceeded 16,000. The Call Centre’s efficiency is ensured by its integration into the Electronic Trading Platform "Freight Transport" and the centres for the sale of services, whose system is now being developed on the railway network.