Ministry of Railways overestimated passengers
Today new tariffs on long-distance railway routes come into effect. Now all train tickets (except for tickets for commuter trains) will cost 30% more. It turns out that the passengers themselves are to blame for this: their incomes, according to the Ministry of Railways, have increased. And the increase in ticket prices is in line with the railway tariff indexation policy approved by the country’s government.

The decision to increase tariffs by 30% was made on December 21 last year at a meeting of the board of the Ministry of Antimonopoly Policy (MAP). In 2000, according to official data, household incomes began to increase for the first time since the August 1998 crisis. Directly linking the increase in railway tariffs with the state of Russians’ wallets, the Ministry of Railways, starting in September, several times appealed to the MAP with a proposal to index tariffs for long-distance passenger transportation (it is the antimonopoly agency that must approve such proposals from railway workers).
As a result, from September to December, railway tariffs were increased twice, increasing by a total of 45%. Nevertheless, according to railway workers, the Ministry of Railways' losses from passenger transportation in 2000 amounted to 27 billion rubles. Now tariffs will immediately increase by 30%. Thus, the cheapest ticket for the high-speed electric train ER-200 Moscow-Petersburg will cost 300 rubles. And for food and service you will have to pay about 90 rubles. The Ministry of Railways expects that this will somewhat reduce the costs of subsidizing chronically unprofitable passenger transportation.
At the same time, the Ministry of Railways decided to sweeten the pill somewhat by announcing in a special press release that the cost of tickets for commuter trains will not change. In addition, after indexation of tariffs, all existing benefits and discounts will remain in force (and approximately 46 million Russians are entitled to them). But this does not make things any easier for the rest of the inopportunely rich Russians, especially since the current tariff increase will not be the last. After all, even after this, the Ministry of Railways’ expenses for passenger transportation will still only be covered by 60%. Not to mention the fact that the Ministry of Railways continues to work on the creation of JSC Russian Railways (RZD). And the ministry would like to carry out all unpopular measures to increase fares in advance. So that JSC Russian Railways would be an absolutely break-even structure at the time of its inception.

LEONID ZAVARSKY

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 1 dated January 10, 2001, p. 3