The EU transport system is not technically ready to transport large volumes of Ukrainian cargo
JSC Ukrzaliznytsia emphasizes a number of problems on the part of the transport system of European countries, which hinder the increase in the volume of rail freight from Ukraine to Europe.
"The block of technical problems is that the transport system of European countries is not ready to technically transport such large volumes. It needs additional rolling stock: cars and locomotives. They need to complete certain branches to be able to pass more cargo," he said online. -conference "War Economics: May Review and Focus on Infrastructure" Deputy Director of the Commercial Department of "Ukrzaliznytsia" Valery Tkachev.
According to him, today UZ transports only 2,000 cars or about 130,000 tons of cargo per day at the western border crossings, which is approximately equal to 3.8 million tons of cargo per month. At the same time, UZ's own capacity allows to transport 3422 cars, or 220 thousand tons per day.
According to the Ukrainian railway operator, the root of the problem is that the railway infrastructure of Ukraine and Europe differs significantly in track width.
And in order for the two infrastructures to be exchanged, there are only two ways: to carry out congestion at the border or to change carriages. At the same time, UZ notes that there are not enough reloading terminals.
"In addition, the most acute problem is the number of Eurorail cars 1435. That is, we can carry a much larger amount of cargo, but there is a problem or lack of transshipment capacity, or the problem of European cars," - said Tkachev.
He also stressed the existence of another technical problem, which is that the infrastructure of European countries has limited capacity, as it was built for the needs of intra-European transport.
"In Europe, the share of rail transport in the overall structure of the transport system is 15-35%, while we have 65%. Therefore, European infrastructure was not initially designed for such large volumes of rail freight," he said.
According to Tkachev, the growth rate of rail transport is also influenced by organizational issues of the business, which for many years built supply chains towards ports and which now needs to refocus on border crossings.
"Currently, we have accumulated 34,000 cars on the network, which are submerged and waiting to cross the border," Tkachev said.
In addition, a number of bureaucratic procedures at the border, including repetitive phytosanitary and veterinary controls, significantly slow down freight transport.
At the same time, the growth of railway transportation continues to recover: according to Tkachev, in March UZ transported 416 thousand tons of agricultural products, in April - 638 thousand tons. Ukrzaliznytsia's goal is to reach 1-1.5 million tons / month of grain exports.