One of key indicators of effective wagon transportation is turnover of wagons. The standard wagon turnover is the value that forms the rate for a wagon. If, in fact, the shipper uses the wagon longer, but pays for standard number of days, then profitability of wagons naturally decreases, and with a systematic excess of actual turnover over the standard, annual profitability of entire wagon fleet decreases, which leads to impossibility of financing the costs for wagon repairing and updating.
The role of regulatory turnover is especially significant during the period of active transportation, when, in addition to profitability, the effective use of each wagon is also significant – its maximum load. The harvesting campaign of 2022-2023 is accompanied by an agiotage demand for grain wagons caused by the desire of shippers to simultaneously take out a large volume of new harvest in 3-4 months.
Among the weighty reasons for increased demand was slowdown in the turnover of wagons. According to experts, turnover losses occurred mainly at the initial and final operations due to infrastructure constraints of both shippers and consignees. At the same time, the analysis showed that the deterioration in the turnover of wagons is not local and temporary, but persists throughout the year. Therefore, the total turnover of grain carriers in 2022 deteriorated by 4%, while in intra-republican transportation this figure exceeded the standard by 48%.
The regular deterioration in the turnover of wagons leads to the need to increase the fleet, and hence to an increase in the cost of purchasing, attracting and maintaining wagons, since the cost of repairing and buying new wagons is growing annually, outpacing inflation.
By the end of 2022, the share of «Astyk Trans» JSC in domestic transportation amounted to 76%. In conditions of reduced turnover and increased maintenance costs of the fleet, during this period, intra-republican transportation turned out to be unprofitable for the company. Other freight forwarders and operators are not interested in using the fleet in domestic transportation, but are focused on highly profitable export destinations.