Railways Transport in Russia: Overview, Stakeholders, and International Governing Bodies

Running head: GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION AND TRANSPORT 1
Global distribution and Transport
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Railways transport in Russia
Introduction
Russia has been spending billions of monies to ensure that the country has an effective
and efficient rail infrastructure capable of driving and growing its economy. Russia operates the
second largest rail network in the world after the United States of America (Petrova, 2015). The
rail transport has a span of an 85,000 km track, and it accounts for the country’s 90% of all
freight movements excluding pipeline transport. The Russian rail transport is divided into
seventeen geographical regional railways. The regional railway is being coordinated by the
Ministry of the Means of Communication, Joint Stock Company Russian Railways and
Rossiiskie Zheleznyie Dorogi (RZD). Economically, the Russian railway transport accounts for
approximately 2.5% of the total GDP, and a total of 800,00 people are employed working in
different departments and sections either as skilled and unskilled laborers.
Statistically, the public rail transport transported close to 1.3 billion people in 2007
(Chistik, Nosov, Tsypin, Ivanov & Permjakova, 2016). Railway transport in Russia has made it
easier for Coal miners to transport coal. With this kind of business activities, the money being
generated can be used to develop the economy of citizens. As an illustration, the revenue being
collected from the railway transport in Russia contribute a total of 2.5% to GDP growth of the
country. When it comes to employment, the railway transport can improve the standards of living
since they can get payment which can be used to take care of personal needs and expenses. With
the steady growth of transit goods from 22 million tons in 2009 to 22 million in 2012, the
revenue being generated will increase. Railways transport has opened an opportunity for foreign

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investment since Russia has been able to reach out to Europe for investment and partnership in
the development of its railway network that will able to generate numerous monetary benefits.
This can be evidenced by the recent Eurobond issues of RZD. Furthermore, the European
government has invested more than $1.6 billion in 13 Russian rail projects since the reforms that
took was launched in 2001 (Miroshnikova & Taskaeva, 2017).
Main stakeholders
The Russian railway transport has numerous stakeholders playing a key role in its
development. First, there is the Joint Company Russian Railway Company which is a fully state-
owned company. It provides a variety of services such as passenger service in which the
passengers are transported on domestic services and direct transit routes which include; Europe,
Asia, Czech Republic, Mongolia, French China, and Baltic countries (Razumovskaya, Lapidus,
Mishakin & Popov, 2014). When it comes to freight charges, the company provides the
following services; logistics and terminal warehouse services, providing rolling stock and
stevedore transportation. These services being provided are among the strengths of the
organization. Others include; the company can operate a large business. Some of its operations
include; 85, 000 kilometers of railway lines, being able to manage more than 750,000 skilled
employees, transporting a total of 1.3 billion people and over 1 billion freight annually.
Additionally, the company generates close to 1.5% of the country’s GDP (Berg, 2016).
Lastly, it has its presence in more than 40 countries. A major weakness of this stakeholder is lack
of enough resources such as monetary and human capital to launch developmental plans that will
lead improved transport efficiency. Inadequate resource is a problem related to management.
This results in the organization seeking funds from outside countries on loan.