Organisation of container trains between St. Petersburg and Novorossiysk

. On the basis of the developed methodology for establishing organisational and technological requirements for the destination of container trains, on the example of the direction of circulation of the container train St. Petersburg - Novorossiysk, a practical calculation has been made to determine the economically feasible length and frequency of container train running.


Introduction
The sanctions imposed on the Russian transport market and the withdrawal of the world's largest operators have led to a reorientation of container traffic, which had gravitated toward ports in the Baltic basin, to ports in the Far East and land border crossings.As a result, the demand for transportations in the Eastern direction increased significantly.The import/export imbalance may lead to overstocking of port container terminals.In conditions of capacity deficit, it is unprofitable for the carrier to send container trains of non-uniform length, further increasing the demand for container transport and the required number of trains.The high congestion in the Eastern direction forces shippers to look for alternative cargo delivery routes, such as through the port of Novorossiysk.

Materials and methods
Let us consider the determination of optimal organisational and technological requirements on the example of a container train (CT) running between St. Petersburg and Novorossiysk, using the economic and mathematical model and methodology [1,2], the main principles of which are presented below.

Assessment of technical and technological capabilities of the infrastructure to pass the volume of containers declared by the CT Organiser on a given direction
At the first stage, the minimum length of the container train on the direction under consideration is determined, based on the criterion of unconditional repayment of the transport demand declared by the CT Organiser: (1) here Dmin -the demand for the transport of containers declared by the CT Organiser, expressed in conventional wagons; P -provision for the capacity of the direction, trains; Xmax, Xmin define the maximum and minimum length of a container train in the direction under consideration respectively.In order to unify the determination of the optimal length of the CT train, the container train completeness factor is used -a value that characterises the approximation of the actual length of the container train to the maximum possible length established for a particular direction.
The schedule of changes in the number of container trains required to transport the demand declared by the CT Organiser is presented in fig. 1.
Note: The dashed lines in the figures here and below are limitations on section capacity, number of locomotives and other infrastructure constraints.Their location on the graphs depends on the actual data.With a fixed demand for carriage and unchanged tariff, the highest profit will be achieved when container trains of maximum length are dispatched, due to the smaller number of train locomotives required, but a more regular service may attract additional demand for carriage.

Number of trains
Completeness ratio number of trains throughput capacity demand

Assessment of potential traffic growth by attracting freight flows from alternative modes of transport and other types of rolling stock
In the second stage, the potential increase in demand due to the organisation of shorter container trains is assessed.It is taken into account that shorter trains accumulate faster due to both shorter length and increased container traffic, as shown in Fig. 2. Taking into account the potential growth of demand, it is necessary to determine the minimum length of the container train on the considered direction, based on the criterion of unconditional repayment of the declared by the CT Organiser and additionally attracted demand for transportation, which is presented in Fig. 3.

Assessment of the competitiveness of the container service under consideration in relation to alternative modes of transport
At the third stage, the efficiency of container delivery by rail and alternative modes of transport is compared, and the results are used to draw a conclusion about the competitiveness of the proposed railway service and to evaluate possible options for changing the tariff.Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show the dependence of specific profit at variable volume of transport at standard and increased tariffs, respectively.Fig. 4 shows that at the standard tariff, the maximum profit can be obtained by attracting additional demand for transport at the departure of container trains with length less than the maximum (δ=0.8).However, Fig. 5 shows that with some increase in the tariff, the maximum profit can be obtained at even smaller length of the container train (δ=0.3),attracting more demand.At the same time, the increase in tariff provides coverage of increased costs for locomotives.

Establishment of organisational and technological requirements for the assignment of container trains in the St. Petersburg -Novorossiysk direction
Based on the information provided on the website of one of the largest container operators in Russia PJSC "Transcontainer", as well as the most common on the network of JSC "Russian Railways" container train length of 71 conventional cars, it is possible to calculate the cost of organising a container train in the direction under consideration, the results of which are presented in Table 1.The calculations were made in the Rail-Tariff programme.

Results
Taking into account the possibility of sending 3 additional container trains every day in the busiest eastern direction, we will assess the impact of organisational and technological parameters of the container train on the profit received by the carrier, provided that there is a reserve capacity of 2 additional container trains per month.Then the minimum possible length of the container train on the considered direction on condition of full repayment of all the volume of transportations declared by the Organiser of the container train will be as follows: Fig. 6 shows the graph of change in the components of the tariff for the carriage of 1 conventional wagon per 1 km, depending on the length of the train.The figure shows that the values of the "infrastructure" and "wagon" components are constant and do not depend on the number of wagons in the train.The main impact on the profit received by the carrier is made by the "locomotive" component.This is due to an increase in the number of locomotives required when the train length is reduced, as well as the allocation of "locomotive" costs to a smaller number of wagons.Thus, in the case of sending container trains of the minimum possible length in the direction, the carrier's profit for the year will be 7,952,456.05rubles.If the train is sent with the maximum possible length, the carrier's profit will be 27,484,029.00roubles.
However, there are situations when reducing the length of the container train can be economically efficient [3][4][5][6].When reducing the length of the train, the period of its accumulation is reduced, the delivery period is reduced and the turnover of containers and rolling stock is accelerated, which can attract additional demand for transport [7][8][9][10][11].
According to the Transport Strategy of the Russian Federation up to 2030, by 2035, the volume of container transportations is expected to increase by 1.5-2 times.Thus, the natural growth of container transportations year-on-year will be 8.3 p.p. Also, the increase in demand will occur due to the redistribution of some container flows from the Eastern polygon.
Let us consider a 15 per cent increase in demand for cargo transportation in the direction St. Petersburg -Novorossiysk as part of a container train when sending trains of minimum length.
In accordance with [2], we determine the lengths of trains at which the required number of container trains exceeds the available capacity reserve in the direction: or Thus, in order to ensure the possibility of transporting the entire projected demand it is necessary to send container trains not shorter than 48 conventional wagons, which is presented in Fig. 7.When sending container trains with a length of less than 48 conventional wagons, their required number exceeds the cash throughput capacity of the considered direction, in connection with which the entire attracted demand for transport will not be satisfied.At short distance belts, road transport is the key competitor for railway transport.Table 3 provides a comparative analysis of their organisational and technological characteristics for container delivery on the route under consideration.The cost of transporting 1 TEU by road is 4.7 times higher than the railway transport fee.Reducing the CT accumulation period provides a higher level of service, for which customers will be willing to pay a higher tariff.Let's consider an increase in the cost of transporting containers by 10% when sending container trains of minimum length.
In this case, the maximum cost of transporting 1 TEU in the direction under consideration will be 32797.3rubles.At the same time the cost for carriage by road transport is 4.27 times more.Dependence of the carrier's profit on the length of container trains running in the direction under consideration, subject to the possibility of increasing the tariff by the amount proportional to the reduction in the length of the container train is presented in Fig. 8. Based on the obtained results, we see that the optimal variant is the dispatch of trains with the length of 56 conventional wagons.In this case, the period of CT accumulation relative to the initial organisational and technological characteristics will be reduced by 2.8 days, and the profit will increase by 2352203.86 rubles/year.In turn, for the consignor the cost of carriage of 1 TEU will increase by 1639.86 rubles, which is 586 rubles per day of delivery period reduction.Further reduction in the length of the container train will lead to a sharp increase in the "locomotive" component of costs, due to the need to transport more containers by trains of shorter lengths.

Conclusion
Thus, the definition of appropriate organisational and technological requirements for the assignment of container trains, based on the throughput capacity of the direction, the number of locomotives used, loading plan, the availability of containers and platforms at the container terminal, the availability of platforms, containers on the approach to the station adjacency, as well as taking into account the forecast demand for this transport product, based on the reduction of for accumulation, delivery time, and regularity of transportation can ensure the attraction of additional transport services, as well as the use of additional resources.
Depending on the direction under consideration and its technical and economic characteristics, the proposed methodology can be used to solve various problems: in the case of low-intensity container traffic -to determine the organisational and technological parameters of transportation, ensuring an increase in profits by attracting additional volumes of railway traffic; in the case of variable demand for transportation, to promptly adjust the optimal organisational and technological requirements for the assignment of container trains to consider the following: in the case of low-intensity container traffic -to determine the organisational and technological parameters of transportation, ensuring an increase in profits by attracting additional volumes of railway traffic.
In case of high demand for transportation, to ensure more complete repayment of demand by assigning trains of increased length and connected trains; in case of shortage of the container and fitting platform fleet, to ensure preservation of the existing profit by transporting a smaller number of containers at a higher tariff, while accelerating their turnover.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Effect of train length on the number of container trains required to transport a given volume of goods.

Fig. 2 :
Fig. 2: Comparison of the accumulation period and intensity of container traffic at different lengths of container trains.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Effect of train length on the required number of container trains needed to transport the CT Organiser's declared and additional transport demand.

Fig. 2 .
Fig. 2. Dependence of the specific profit received by the carrier on the length of the container train at variable volume of transportations.

Fig. 3 .
Fig. 3. Dependence of the specific profit received by the carrier on the length of the container train at variable transport volume and increased tariff.

Fig. 4 .
Fig. 4. Schedule of change of tariff components for carriage of 1 conventional wagon per 1 km in the direction St. Petersburg (Shushary) -Novorossiysk.

Fig. 5 .
Fig. 5. Effect of train length on the required number of container trains after estimating the potential increase in traffic volumes.

Fig. 6 .
Fig. 6.Dependence of profit received by the carrier on the length of container trains running in the direction of St. Petersburg -Novorossiysk.

Table 1 .
Cost of organising a container train in the direction of St. Petersburg -Novorossiysk under the current organisational and technological requirements.
[2]ed on the data in Table1, we determine the cost of transporting one conventional wagon per 1 km[2]: Let us estimate the absolute values of the tariff components at different values of container train length at constant demand.The obtained data are presented in Table Error!No text of specified style in document.2.

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No text of specified style in document.3.Comparison of the efficiency of container delivery to St. Petersburg -Novorossiysk by road and railway transport at a constant tariff.