Happy New Year 2010! Good luck on the road!

20.01.2010 (12:08)

Following the tradition, The RZD-Partner #1, 2010 includes the review of the most important events in transport for the past year. Of course, the number of own opinions in such a special matter is equal to the number of people engaged in the world transport sector. Therefore, we shall try to explain our choice of events, which the editor’s staff made together with our experts.

Generally speaking, it should be recognized that 2009 was not too eventful, in terms of landmark points or processes. At the same time, of course, the most notable event was the economic crisis with its drop in traffics, which reached its record values in January and February. This was actually the first challenge of this kind which Russia faced, and certainly not the last one, because it is not a secret that, as usually, the anti-crisis measures undertaken by governments all over the world had a pain-killing rather than curative effect. As regards companies, they were forced to learn to streamline and improve their competitiveness, and, as a result, many of them benefited from those lessons. Another interesting (in our opinion) consequence of the crisis was the fact, that a falling demand for transport services on the national market has finally put everything back from head to feet, when a supply exceeds the demand (not vice versa!). Thus everyone has received an evidence that the market regulatory functions are working well everywhere, including in transport.

Perhaps this fact has also seriously reduced the amount of skeptics in the issue of creating The Second Cargo Company. Thus the formation of the market conditions in the rail carrier sector has been mostly completed. We believe that the adoption of this decision, together with the elaboration of a target model in freight transport, and the creation of the Federal Passenger Company, are also the most important events of the year, because the process of structural reforms remains to be a critical point in the light of the task set by the President to modernise the economy.

Of course, we cannot skip such event as the Sapsan high-speed train service started between Moscow and St Petersburg. Three hours and 45 minutes between Russia's capitals is, no doubt, a record for the country. Today it has already enabled railways to compete with aviation on this route. It is important to emphasise that three pairs of trains are included in the daily time-table, which means that it is done for a real practical purpose, not just for the show. However, the Sapsan’s speed on the route cannot impress very much yet - it is only 170 kph. This is probably a limit for the infrastructure available here. It means that new special high-speed lines have to be built. Let's hope that the current year will bring the governmental document for the Moscow - St Petersburg HSL construction.

Another event in 2009 which seems to us very notable is the creation of a Nonprofit Partnership "The Council of the Railway Rolling Stock Service Market Operators", which is expected to become a SRO. No doubt that a self-regulatory organisation in this sector is the evidence that this business has already become mature enough, so there is no doubt that many rail transport problems will be solved quicker and more efficiently.

The economic changes which we mentioned in our rating include the adoption of the Concept of the Internal Waterway Management Reform which assumes changes in the river transport to be provided in two stages until 2015. Thus "the river" is obviously waiting for its reform, and it is long overdue.

Also, the past year pleased our ports. The long-lasting seaport border issue has finally started to obtain its solutions in Russia. Borders were created for 23 ports, including such largest ones as The Big Port of St Petersburg, Novorossiysk, Murmansk, Eastern, etc. Bringing order to this area will allow for better quality work at Russian ports, thus increasing their competitiveness. Let's hope that borders will be clarified at all the rest of our harbours in 2010.

In our opinion, the main event in the motor transport industry was the creation of a State Company "Russia's Automobile Roads”, where, hopefully, mechanisms of attracting private investments in this sector will be developed next.

Many of our experts think that the past year's governmental decree #643 about railway tariffs will play a very big role in the observable future. Its most important point is, obviously, the finally made real step forward towards the liberalisation of railway tariffs, which will enable RZD to be more flexible to the solvent demand, to manage cargo flows effectively, to invest in those sectors which are demanded most of all, depending on the situation in the world market. Among other reasons which made it happen, there is a fact that in 2009 transport companies intensified their involvement in the securities market, which we consider very symbolic, and therefore we have also included it in our rating.

And finally, a very useful and necessary event in 2009 was automated workflow process with digital signatures launched on the entire RZD network. No need to mention that it is impossible to imagine the near future without information technologies in transport.

These were, in our opinion, the main signs of the bygone year. We would like to sincerely thank our readers for being with us in 2009, and for staying with us in the current year. Our magazine keeps striving for the development and satisfaction of the readers' demand. This year we have renewed the design and are thinking to update the contents layout, to introduce a number of new headings.

Happy New Year! Be successful, transport market! And, as we say, good luck to all of us on the road!

Alexander Retyunin

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