OREANDA-NEWS. November 24, 2014. Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), Anatoly Golomolzin, attended the II All-Russian Conference “Metallurgy and Freight Traffic” where he made a report on “Building Up Commercial Market Infrastructure (CMI) in Rail Freight”.

“Currently there are all necessary preconditions for establishing an institution of co-regulation in production and sales of freight traffic services”, pointed out Anatoly Golomolzin, discussing commercial market infrastructure (CMI) in rail freight.

CMI will enable to form proper procedures to render and circulate services (particular, contractual relations) in rail freight in line with the established market relations.

Foreign experience and experience of institutional changes in Russia show that efficient structural reforms are possible only if all stake-holding organizations are able to control transaction costs in relations between old and new participants of the emerging competitive market.

At the moment competitive ability of railway transport is decreased in comparison with the road transport.

According to “Russian Railways”, shipping in the 9 months of 2014 was 913.2 million tons, which is 1.2% less than in the similar period of 2013. According to the Institute of the Problems of Natural Monopolies (IPNM), exit of freight from the rail transport will cost roads 4.9 million additional truck rides per year.

“The downward trend in the speed of delivering consignments via the railway network, the quality of traffic services also is a serious concern”, emphasized Deputy Head of FAS.

The average delivery speed of a consignment by rail in 2012 reduced in comparison with 2008 by 71 km/day and was closer to the situation in 1986 at 219 km/day.

In the opinion of consignors, the main shortcomings in the work of the railway transport include reduced quality of rendering services: multistaging and complexity of drawing up shipping documents, absence of integrated transportation services; lack of a single person responsible for executing a transportation order.

The objective of establishing the market co-regulation institution in rail freight was formulated by Vladimir Putin at a meeting on developing the coal industry (Kemerovo, 24.01.2012): “To coordinate work and ensure the balance of interests of rail traffic market participants, a self-regulatory organization should be formed similar to the “Market Council” in the electric power industry”.

To execute the order, FAS formed a Working Group at FAS Expert Council on Rail Transport to consider issues under the frame of executing orders by the President and the Government of the Russian Federation to form commercial market infrastructure in rail transport. Members of the Working Group are traffic participants (freight owners, railway operators, car builders and other non-profit associations).

In 2013-2014, the Working Group held 7 meetings. A web-site of Commercial Market Infrastructure in rail traffic is developed (kirrail.org).

The web-sites will disclose the following information:

1. Information about Commercial Market Infrastructure in rail freight.

2. Web-site modules: Placing the Rolling Stock on Private Tracks, Organized Competitive Bidding for Rendering Cars, Terminal Services; Regular Freight Trains, Locomotive Haulage, etc.

Currently the first part of the project is launched and the system of organized trading with the services for placing freight cars on private tracks is operating in the test mode (“Placing the Rolling Stock on Private Tracks” module).

Module users can be operators that want to put their railway stock on private tracks (“car siding”), owners of private rail tracks that are prepared to sell the service for car siding to operators, as well as freight owners.

The “Placing the Rolling Stock on Private Tracks” CMI module (rb.kirrail.org) registered: the number of private tracks owners – 16, number of car owners – 14, number of registered private tracks – 18, total length of approaching lines – 65,220 m, which is 4,659 conventional cars.

On average, more than 400 users visit the “Placing the Rolling Stock on Private Tracks” CMI module (rb.kirrail.org) per month.