The board of Russian Railways has approved an integrated development concept for the container business of its holding company.

The impetus to develop this concept stems from the fact that the global container shipping market expects high growth rates over the next ten years. The main growth in container traffic will come from the growing trade between the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and Europe; much of this traffic could potentially consist of transit via CIS countries.

The concept, among other things, seeks to attract transit traffic and encourage the further development of international transport corridors which pass through the territory of Russia, primarily between the ‘East’ and ‘West’. Meeting these challenges necessitates the creation of a major international transit logistics operator, with ownership spread among a wide range of partners. The organization would work closely with European and Chinese intermodal operators and railway administrations under the auspices of the International Union of Railways.

Specifically, in order to increase the competitiveness of the container business, the integrated development concept seeks to establish and implement a system of stages for group and individual container shipment, which will concentrate freight traffic between major container terminals. This will improve the routing speed of container shipments from its current 200-400 km / day to 500-700 km / day. Additionally, the plan calls for the optimization of the cost structure for the transportation of containers across small and medium-range distances, which will give railways the opportunity to compete with road transport over distances of between 500 and 2000 km.

The concept hopes to expand the range of available shipping services: these will include “door to door” delivery, container tracking deployment in real-time, rigid containers, and guaranteed delivery times.

(Source: RZD)