The year 2021 is a very challenging one. Besides the worldwide health pandemic, the biggest challenge for us and for every railway company in Romania is definitely the renovation of Corridor 4. What is Corridor 4? It’s the main railway section that connects the Black Sea with Central and Western Europe. This railway starts in Constanța, crossing big cities like Bucharest, Ploiești, Brașov, Timișoara, Arad or Craiova. The works continue in Hungary, on the border with Romania. This corridor is one of the most essential ones for all Romanian and European railway transportation, it’s the main connection between the Black Sea and Europe.

Challenges and losses in the process

The entire process of the renovation of this corridor lasted longer than originally planned. From the last official information, the works will be completed by 2023. Infrastructure rehabilitation works on this corridor will allow higher speeds of up to 160 km/h for passenger trains and up to 120 km/h for freight trains. Until then all the railway companies have a big challenge to deliver and to make all their transportation in a reasonable time. Which means financial losses for every part. What is the strategy in this case?

  1. The common locomotive usage contract

To cope and to shorten the time of the whole transportation process, more railway companies have made for this period a common locomotive usage contract. What is this more exactly? To shorten the waiting time in the areas where the works are located, which can lead to a waste of time and money, most railway companies made a contract to help each other, by using common locomotives. More exactly this common locomotive usage is an understanding between both sizes, between two railway companies or countries, that a single locomotive is accepted and can be used in both places, without the need to change them at some point. By this every company can win time and money. 

  1. The common principle of trust

The common principle of trust between railway companies is based on common trust handling on the trains. This means that every company who is using corridor 4 makes sure before starting the transportation that the locomotive and all the cargos are technically eligible and there is no problem in any way. The common principle of trust has 2 important sides. The first one is a technical one, more exactly it’s the guarantee that every locomotive on the rail is more than perfectly functional and verified at the starting point. With this technical guarantee the time spent with checks on the road is saved, the waiting time almost disappears. The second part of this common principle is that all the necessary documentation for the entire transportation process is digitalized. The company sends all the necessary documentation via email or online in any used platform before the starting of the transportation. In this way, the trains can cross borders much easier, without waiting for extra checks in stations, without all the paperwork. This common principle can only function if every locomotive is functioning perfectly, with the highest quality from all sides. 

  1. Electronic corridor route

For perfect optimization in the transporting process, there is a special corridor route. We can proudly say that we are almost unique in Romania with this kind of service, more exactly we managed to make a fixed route to optimize all the processes. What is this more exactly? On the territory of Romania, we have around 50-60 sites, which cover the entire country, from where we arrive and start at a fixed time. In this way, we can manage exactly all the necessary transportation to the rest of Europe, without a big waste of time. This service is very suitable for grain transportation, container or car transportation, because with a single path we reach several points, collecting all the cargos and transport more at once without many roads to a point and back. This kind of rail transportation is perfect for any kind of business, where the entire process can be scheduled and foreseeable.

We are always looking for the best solutions in optimizing all our processes, to offer the best services for our clients. The team behind MMV Rail Romania makes all that is possible to get the best management strategies that cover all the possible scenarios in these difficult times. The main objective is to make sure that until the works on Corridor 4 are finalized we can minimize the losses and come up with the best solutions for every transport in part. Contact us and find out more!