OREANDA-NEWS. March 30, 2009. In 2008, JSC TransContainer fitting platforms carried as much as 1.5 million TEU or more than 60% of Russia’s total rail container freight volume. This is what Petr Baskakov, JSC TransContainer General Director reported to the company’s management at the recent meeting.

"The past year was quite a success for our company. Despite the crisis, we retained our leadership position and market share in the Russian transportation market. Besides, JSC TransContainer is the leader of terminal handling, having handled as much as 1.9 million TEU or 37% of total market volume in its terminals,” said Mr. Baskakov.

In 2008, the company added 3, 000 carriage cars and 9,000 containers to its fleet, having thus expanded its car fleet capacity by 17% (now almost 70,000 TEU) and bulk container fleet by 25% (now more than 75,000 TEU). “Our own 40-feet container fleet increased by 2.9 and 80-fleet container fleet grew ten-fold,” said Mr. Baskakov.

However, according to Mr. Baskakov, the current dramatic decline in industrial output led to a fall in demand for railroad container transportation. “Yet, even in the context of the crisis, we have to admit that our losses were considerably less important than those of our competitors. Over the first two months other companies saw 30% drop in their bulk container lading whereas our share shrank only by 14%. Our high quality standards and sound service policy allowed us to retain our leadership in the market,” said Mr. Baskakov.

What he refers to is, in particular, the company’s current program of transferring freight from covered cars to container transportation. Besides, the company’s management is now shifting its focus to a broader use of fitting platforms for non-container cargos (timber, pipes and motor cars). In January 2009, the company had 143 cars of such cargos and by February this figure rose to 228 cars. Motorcars and ferrous pipe cargos were the fastest to grow.

According to Mr. Baskakov, today the company has fully switched to order processing and accounting through the united information system (IRS Transportation). It enables clients to order a full service range in any branch of the company. “We call this service “through order” and it is really customer-friendly and labor efficient,” said Mr. Baskakov.