What the georgian railway should be like

Aleko Pantsulaia

Ark Computers and financial-economic consulting group FEG submitted a project of complete computerisation to the Railway Department of Georgia.

The project takes into account computer registration, management and optimisation of financial and accounting activities, registration of freight flows, transportation of passengers, spare parts, commercial and social commitments. If it is implemented, corruption and bureaucratic barriers in the Georgian Railway will be completely eradicated, service quality and freight flow will improve, production profits and budget receipts will increase.
We speak to Beso Jgerenaia, senior specialist of railway branches and limited liability companies.
– As far as we know, railway is a state within a state and it also needs to be developed. Development of railway should correspond tothe international standards. Railway development of Georgia has been provided with recommendations “about main priorities of sector development” by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development. The first step in this direction would be informational development of the railway, I mean its complete computerisation. This is very important as exchange of information between the railway and its branches should be fast. In its turn, this will simplify railway operations. Freight flow will increase and service will become simplified, which will be a great step forward for reformation and modernisaiton of the railway.
Therefore, the more modern the railway is, the more attractive it will become for foreign investors. Thus, incomes of the Railway will increase significantly. Today, the organisation itself is one of the largest taxpayers in Georgia and is said to be its backbone. It is a really wonderful project detailing the measures to be carried out. From the programme and technical point of view, all the substations and units should be arranged in such a way as to become easily controllable from the department, i.e. everything should be centralised.
– What does the project represent? What does it provide for?
– It is necessary to perform complete computerisation of the Georgian Railway and all its structures; computerised information bank and single informational computer network will be established. The network will work in on-line regime. Bureaucratic and corruption mechanisms will be eradicated. The project will contribute to the absolute transparency of management, simplification of freight flow service and increase of its volume as well as its total automatisation and transparency of (railroad) administration, objectivity and optimisation of purchases. This will help to achieve guaranteed services and minimum expenses as well as to simplify relations with customers, to provide complete international integration, automatisation of monetary and accounting operations and to create optimal bank management. To achieve the aims, the programme sets itself the following four groups of tasks. Their solution requires:
1) Creation of a “railroad-client” programme that will enable a client or a cargo owner to get in touch with the railroad via computer, inquire about the necessary terms and make an application as well as to make financial settlement in line with the “bank-client” programme so that to avoid bureaucratic barriers and law breaches and to create competitive environment;
2) Creation of freight flow management and monitoring programme to enable network clients to obtain full information on-line on the cargo movement and to promote automatisation of cargo movement and optimisation of railway utilisation;
3) Similarly, creation of programme for controlling and forecasting passengers’ transportation;
4) The next task is complete management of contract commitments from the viewpoint of cargo transportation service as well as management of international commitments and monitoring of integration processes;
5) Creation of financial blocs, which is an important task. This should include accounting programme, profits, losses and dividend management programme, budgetary, tax monitoring as well as monitoring of wages-fund, staff, enterprises, benefits and loans management. The bloc also includes the “bank-client” programme and cash flow management.
6) Solution of normative legal tasks by means of creating a management bloc, which is also very important. This will include programme of normative legal framework management, programme of commercial, financial and material development concept, programme of PR group’s assignments and orders execution and PR group management.
7) Creation of optimisation bloc for material base that include: automatisation of the rolling stock management, purchase and use of spare parts, restoration works as well as optimisation of the tracks, real estate, auxiliary objects and own production.
8) How will technical provision be performed?
9) Implementation of the tasks relies on the modernised computer and communication base. The programme provides for the establishment of the central service, regional centres and sub-centres of automatised control.
A variant of communication is presented:
The fibre network of the railroad is used in the first variant; the second variant envisages the use of satellite antennas. In this case, the Georgian Railroad will represent a single computer network. It is planned to build computer parks in the centres. They are represented in two variants. In the first variant technical base relies on modern computers, but not on brands that are much more expensive. The second variant relies on brands.
– What will be the results of the project implementation?
– Corruption and bureaucratic barriers will be completely eradicated on the Railway. As I have already said, freight flow will increase, it will become optimised while expenses will become minimised. Hence, production profits and budget dues will increase. At the same time, service quality and management efficiency will increase. The possibility of financial breaches will be absolutely ruled out. There will be full integration in the business of international railway transportation.
At the same time, in the conditions of international auditing railroad becomes attractive for investors and donors. After the completion of the programme, socio-economic conditions of the organisation’s staff will get significantly improved while transportation will become safer.