Problems of Managing Technical Assets in Railway Domain

The railway transport of the Russian Federation is mainly represented by Joint Stock Company “Russian Railways” (JSC “RZD”) that is the largest owner and operator of transport infrastructure facilities on the territory of the Russian Federation. Almost 335,000 people maintain the infrastructure complex of the JSC “RZD,” including approximately 150,000 km of tracks, 30,000 bridges and viaducts, 159 tunnels, more than 5000 stations, and many other types of the infrastructure facilities. In addition, the JSC “RZD” is a major owner and operator of communication networks, an operator of telephone and radio communications, including digital communications (DMR, Tetra, GSM-R). The total length of communication lines of the JSC “RZD” is over 330,000 km; the length of fiber-optic communication lines is over 77,000 km. Over 500,000 units of signalling equipment, as well as more than 6 million units of various sensors, technical diagnostics and telemetry equipment are operated on the railway infrastructure. Transportation process is supplied uninterruptedly with electric power provided by 1402 traction substations. 11,000 freight locomotives (electric and diesel), 6000 shunting engines (diesel), 1,600,000 freight wagons of all types and owners, 24,000 long-distance passenger cars, and more than 15,000 commuter cars are operated on the railways of the JSC “RZD.” The Russian Railways Holding is the largest backbone of the Russian economy, the most important element of its transport system, providing over 44% of freight turnover and over 30% of the passenger turnover of the entire transport system of the country, forming 1.7% of Russia’s GDP, 1.5% of tax revenues to the country’s budget system, and up to 4% of the total capital investment in Russia. Russian Railways is one of the TOP-5 largest companies in Russia, one of the top companies in the world (including the United States and China) in terms of the length of railway network and number of passengers carried and freight transported. The share of the cost of the infrastructure fixed assets of the JSC “RZD” is more than 60% of its total cost of fixed assets; the share of operational costs for infrastructure facilities is about 35% of the total costs. Optimization of infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance costs is one of the key objectives of the JSC “RZD.”