Transport Strategy of Russia

Yaroslava Burmistrova

Transport Strategy for Russia

That is hard to overestimate significance of transportation system for economy of a country. Nowadays, it is actually one of resources, which help country to achieve economic success in the global competition. The transportation is integrally interconnected with different economic spheres influencing each other. For example, mining industry concentrated in certain parts of Russia predetermined development of railroads.

Working out a transportation strategy for Russia needs to define current state of transportation system, disclose problem it faces and problems it will probably face in the future due to global changes and development of Russian economy.

The transportation system of Russia could be characterized as developed. Nevertheless, it is rather imbalanced, with railroad and pipelines having the leading positions in overall cargo transportations, being accounted for 42% and 50% respectively^[1]. This situation is determined by vast territory of Russia and severe climate of its major part.

Unlike most developed countries, the share of truck transportation is negligibly low, only 4,2%, compared with Germany, where more than half of cargo transportation is accomplished with motor vehicles^[2]. That could be explained by poor condition of roads, which leads to extremely low average speed of transportation (about 5 times lower than in developed countries of Europe), and bad road accessibility of vast territory of the country. In addition to this, truck fleet of Russia is very old, with almost half of it being already depreciated. The structure of this fleet does not meet demand of the market as well: there is only 20% of heavy-duty trucks while the share of bulk cargo rises up to 80% of overall cargo. The last major problem consists in increasing motorization of population along with low road capacity resulting in traffic jams, especially in big cities.

Air transport is especially important for Russia, since it has a lot of distant territories, which are sometimes accessible only by air. However, air transportation is also underdeveloped, as many aircrafts are out-of-date. This means of transportation accounts for 0,1% of cargo transportation.

Same problem stands for sea and river transportation, which together have 3,3% share. Most of both sea and river vessels are outdated, moreover some types of vessels, for example tankers for liquid products and vessels with horizontal loading-unloading are in great shortage or are absent at all. Another arising problem is small number of fully equipped sea ports, as there are only 11 of them for the whole Russia. Sometimes they are so congested that vessels have to wait at quays for weeks.

In a whole, Russia possesses all of the modern means of transport, the allocation and structure of its transport communications are sufficient for countries economy, however, considerable improvement is needed for further development. Among the main problems transportation system of Russia faces are:

• Territorial and structural disproportions of transportation infrastructure
• Obsolescence of motor, sea and river transport
• Low level of transport services export due to the noncompetitiveness
• Low quality of some kinds of transport services
• Increasing level of environment pollution
• Safety issues
• Shortcomings of current transport legislation

The government is aware of these problems, and in 2008 the document named “Transportation strategy of Russian Federation till 2030” was developed and taken into action. This bill is aimed to turn transportation sphere of Russia into fast-growing economic branch integrated with other branches of national economy. The transportation branch is supposed to be cost-, safety-, eco- and quality-competitive on the global market. It is also planned to reach speed and availability level of developed countries.

There are several main goals aimed to embody the holistic mission written above.

First of all, the forming of the united transport area of Russia which bases on balanced development of effective transport infrastructure should be undertaken. This united area means united system of transport communications, integrated system of cargo and transport infrastructure of all means of transport, unified standards of technological compatibility of different means of transport and unified informational environment of their technological interaction. Achievement of this goal would provide dynamic growth of Russia’s economy, consolidation of different regions by removing structural transport disproportion, engagement new regions into economic activity by creation of additional transport connections and growth of competitiveness.

Within the scope of this goal it is anticipated to build and reconstruct principal highways and railroads, sea and river ports, inward waterways and airports, to remove main bottlenecks of transport net. During this development innovative ways to build, reconstruct and maintain facilities would be used.

The second step is provision of accessibility, volume and competitiveness of transport cargo services on the sufficient for innovative economy development level. Achievement of this goal would fully satisfy transport service necessity of both population and businesspeople by providing high-quality services with affordable price.

That could be embodied by developing and implementing transport service market model for each and every industry, which would establish quality standards for different types of cargo and different economic branches, requirements for transport service market legislation and technological model to ensure this quality. In addition to this, it is crucial to invest in machinery industry, which would make possible development and manufacturing of new, technologically advanced river and sea boats, cargo airplanes and trucks. They would replace outdated machinery, thereby substantially improving competitive potential of transportation system of Russia.

The third goal is integration of Russia into global transport environment and realization of transit potential. This would build Russia in global transport system and form a basement for intensifying Russia’s influence on international transport policy and turning transport services export into one of the most significant sources of country’s income.

To make this goal real it is needed to develop a solution how to improve technological characteristics of international transport lines and to monitor foreign transport services market to get acquainted with competitive edges of developed countries and to shadow best practices.