The IX International Conference Transport Service Market: Cooperation and Partnership opened in Moscow today. The Conference’s strategic partner is RZD JSC and the organisers are the company Business Dialogue and the business magazine RZD Partner

Opening the Conference, RZD First Vice-President Vadim Morozov emphasised the pressing need to put in place a mechanism of mutual responsibility of the state and the industry for development of railway transport.

In a keynote report, Deputy Transport Minister Andrei Nedosekov recalled that a long-term model for interaction between the owner of the infrastructure and the state was developed in 2008–2009 in order to ensure large-scale development of the infrastructure, maintain technological stability and the potential to meet the growing demand for carriage. More than 10 trillion roubles were to be invested in developing railway transport between 2008 and 2030. In 2010–2011 alone, 1.1 trillion roubles were to be allocated for the federal target programme Development of the Transport System in the RF to 2015, of which 63.8 billion were to come from the federal budget. With the onset of the economic crisis, budget financing dropped to 12 billion roubles and off-budget financing to 400 billion. Moreover, the investment component was still not included in railway tariffs and the indexation of tariffs was much lower than that planned in 2008. As a result, full-scale implementation of the model did not get off the ground, the Deputy Minister said.

In the opinion of Andrei Nedosekov, a return to using the set of instruments envisaged in the railway transport policy documents, above all long-term tariffs, would lay the foundations for long-term partnership between the state and the industry.

Operation of the railway sector in the new configuration of the freight car operation market was the focus of the presentation by First Vice-President of RZD JSC Vadim Morozov. He noted that development of the regulatory legal framework must involve amendments to the plan for implementing the Target Model of the Railway Freight Carriage Market. He said it was necessary to define more precisely the procedure for moving empty rolling stock, the terms for its presence in the railway transport infrastructure, decisions aimed at restoring the technology of centralised control over the pool of open goods wagons pending introduction of an effective new technology for the work of the pool given multiple operators of the rolling stock. In the opinion of RZD, Vadim Morozov said, it was necessary, not later than the first half of 2012, to pass decisions on uniform tariffs for empty carriage runs regardless of the class of the freight carried. Besides, in the light of the problems in forming an effective rolling stock fleet management system, it would be practicable to postpone the start of the experiment of introducing the institution of local carriers, the First Vice-President of RZD JSC said.

Sergei Maltsev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Council of Participants in the Railway Rolling Stock Operators Market, expressed the opinion of the operators on the interaction between the parties to the carriage process. He said that, despite considerable investments in rolling stock, the operation of the fleet is not particularly effective. The reason is survival of the model of managing the park as inventory, Sergei Maltsev believes. This gives rise to a conflict between the former management practice and the new structure of rolling stock ownership, he said. As regards the proposed mechanism for consolidating the universal rolling stock under RZD management, in the opinion of the community of operators, short-term positive effects are accompanied by significant risks. For example, the increased market role of RZD would increase pressure on the economy as a whole, Sergei Maltsev believes.

The prospects for introducing a network contract and developing the railway infrastructure were the subjects of the afternoon panel discussion. According to Valery Reshetnikov, Senior Vice-President of RZD JSC, the practice of network contracts must first be tested on several stretches of the network, Mezhdurechensk–Taishet being one under consideration. Only once the results of the experiments have been studied can the practice be introduced throughout the network. The whole process might take 3-4 years but such a long preparatory period is justified considering the seriousness of the issue, the top manager said.

The problem of throughput capacity must today be tackled above all by developing the railway infrastructure, all the speakers agreed. And Vice-President of RZD JSC Salman Babayev said that the main problem was that the projects for developing industrial sectors were not coordinated with the capacity of the railway infrastructure.

The business part of the first day of the conference ended with an interactive “Open Dialogue” during which RZD JSC Vice-President Salman Babayev took questions from the audience.

The Conference will continue on 15 December, in roundtable format, to discuss a number of topical aspects of the work of railway transport. The Conference will conclude with a Discussion Club to consider the key features of transporting the main types of freight.

Business Dialog Press Centre
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