RZD proposes creation of rail freight control center in Brazil
MOSCOW. June 21 (Interfax) - Russian Railways (RZD) has proposed creation in Brazil of a unified center for monitoring traffic on various concession sections.
"Brazil today has several concessions that have absolutely no connection with each other. The situation today is that they cannot plan freight flows from one concession to another, let alone a third one. There are a host of problems in this, when a huge amount of freight piles up in ports, trucks sit in traffic jams," RZD International chief Sergei Pavlov told reporters.
"We are offering our new product to them: a transport system monitoring center that would link not just rail transport, but both sea and road [transport]. Then the Transport Ministry would be able to plan freight flows and shipments in general. Today this is done in manual mode, and not very effectively," Pavlov said.
"We are carefully watching [Brazilian] government plans to bring the economically vital North-South rail corridor into operation. It is 90% built, but still hasn't entered operation. We would be very interested in a tender on this segment of the country's rail system," Pavlov said at a Russian-Brazilian business forum in Moscow on Tuesday.
"The launch of the project has been moved back several times already, but we are confident that the Brazilian side will ultimately succeed in finding the golden mean, having distributed risk rationally, having guaranteed potential concessionaires reliable and mutually beneficial terms," he said.
"We see creation of a national center for control and monitoring train traffic in Brazil as one element for boosting the appeal of the North-South concession. We confirm our readiness to offer our competencies and experience on this issue and [on Wednesday] we will show how we are doing that in Russia, how to receive information in real time and, most importantly, forecast transport flows not only for rail transport, but for ports, for truck terminals," he said.
The Russian side is also interested in developing bilateral cooperation and is ready to propose "the entire spectrum of products and services to our Brazilian colleagues," Pavlov said. "This might involve an entirely broad lineup of areas for cooperation. This is consulting on the transport development strategy, identification of [infrastructure] bottlenecks, creation of systems on the basis of domestic developments and cybersecurity. We can also organize personnel training at our Russian vocational institutes. Not to mention supply of rolling stock: locomotives and railcars," he said.
RZD will submit a tender proposal for the concession in accordance with the tender procedures that are announced [by the Brazilian side]," Pavlov said, adding that he was not aware of specific future requirements. "Our proposal is for the entire Brazilian transport system to be able to develop dynamically," he said.
Asked to comment on the possibility of rolling stock deliveries to Brazil, Pavlov said: "The concession is a fully operational rail road: today this is infrastructure, safety systems, rolling stock, operations of course. If they [deliveries] are beneficial for us, we will supply Russian locomotives and railcars there."