OREANDA-NEWS. April 01, 2011. The Passenger Forum 2011 was held at the Swissotel Red Hills conference centre in Moscow. The Forum was attended by over 250 participants, including representatives from Russian ministries and agencies, transport, logistics, financial and service companies, operators of urban, rail and air transport companies and providers and manufacturers of transport vehicles and equipment, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

The Forum with its focus on passenger transport was held for the first time. The main issues on the agenda were the development of passenger traffic, tariff regulation, service and service quality, the development of transport engineering and safety and security.

According to Mikhael Akulov, Vice-President of Russian Railways, modern railway services were pointless if the sector cannot offer passengers high-speed rail links, but that Russia was now among the countries which could do so. Over the past year, the express Sapsan trains have carried some 2 million passengers and were filled to 90-100% capacity.

Akulov also said that Russian Railways was developing a "Concept for the Organisation of Faster High-Speed Passenger Services during the 2018 World Cup" in order to transport fans between the various venues of the tournament, which is being held in Russia. The plan will be presented for discussion in June 2011 and envisages in particular specialised high-speed routes between Moscow - St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod - Kazan which will be capable of handling trains travelling at up to 400 kph.

With regard to international services, the Company envisages high-speed links with European countries between Moscow - Minsk - Warsaw - Berlin. However, the international timetable for 2011-2012 will extend the route of train No. 13/14 Moscow - Berlin on to Paris and reduce the travel time of train No. 17/18 Moscow - Nice by 15% to 44 hours.

Akulov emphasised that nowadays it was vital to integrate the various modes of transport. Moscow City Government and Russian Railways have therefore approved a "Concept of the Comprehensive Investment Project for the Development of Suburban Services in the Moscow Transportation Hub." The Concept aims at integrating the various modes of transport and the creation of a unified regional transport space.

In terms of long-distance services, integration can be achieved by linking up a large number of services operated as a single whole, but also by using multiple modes of transport which concentrate incoming passengers and reassign them to outgoing services through the right connections. A pilot project along these lines will be implemented around Novosibirsk.