Ukrainian Railways planning to increase passenger traffic by 10% in 2024

MOSCOW. April 5 (Interfax) - JSC Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ, or Ukrainian Railways) is planning to increase passenger traffic by 10% to 27.5 million passengers in 2024, Ukrainian media outlets said with a reference to UZ CEO Yevgeny Lyashchenko's interaction with reporters at the company's presentation.

At the same, it is expected that revenues from passenger traffic would grow to 10.6 billion hryvni in 2024 from 9.3 billion hryvni in 2023 and 5.3 million hryvni in 2022.

An increase in passenger traffic is facilitated by the launch of international trains, according to UZ's presentation. In particular, the revenues from international passenger traffic were 2.6 billion hryvni in 2023 compared to one billion hryvni in 2022. Ukrainian Railways effectively transported 2.1 million passengers in 2023 compared to 1.1 million in 2022 and 40,000 in 2021. The company expects to transport 2.3 million passengers and earn 3.5 billion hryvni in 2024.

"International traffic is, unlike the domestic one, profitable. We earn zero only on the Lvov-Rava Russkaya-Warsaw route [which is operated by the Polish company SKPL paid by UZ for its services]," Lyashchenko said.

Ukrainian Railways also expects to increase domestic traffic in 2024, to 25.2 million passengers from 22.8 million in 2023. Revenues from it are expected to grow from 6.7 billion hryvni in 2023 to 7.2 billion hryvni.

The company mentioned that 15 new passenger trains added to the schedule in 2023, increasing the amount of domestic routes to 66. Additionally, three new international routes, namely, Vienna-Budapest-Chop, Lvov-Rava-Russkaya-Warsaw, and Chop-Prague (serviced by the Czech railway operator RegioJet), were launched. The number of international routes reached 25 in 2023.

Ukrainian Railways' plans for 2024 envisage overhaul and reconstruction of 63 passenger cars, which will enable increasing the passenger capacity.

The ability to monitor free seats, which is currently being tested in the UZ app, will be launched in full mode. It is also planned to integrate the online board with the GPS system, improve loyalty programs and upgrade the classification of cars based on their branding, which will facilitate passengers' search for the category suitable for them depending on the range of services.