The new railway equipment is supplied under a trilateral agreement concluded between Russian Post, JSC TVZ and VTB Leasing under the terms of a financial lease. The new cars will be operated both in fast trains and passenger trains, as well as part of the postal train number 990/989 Moscow-Vladivostok. According to the results of a public auction, the cost of purchasing cars amounted to about 3.7 billion rubles, including leasing payments.

According to the terms of the agreement with the lessor, payments will be made in equal shares over 7 years, after which the cars will become the property of Russian Post. This purchase of cars has become the largest since the formation of the FSUE “Russian Post”. In a point of fact, in 2016, the company purchased 10 cars, compared with 45 cars in the last year. The total volume of the car fleet of Russian Post by the end of 2018 will be 819 equipment units.

“The new wagons are distinguished by high manufacturability and increased carrying capacity, which is achieved, among other things, by using the coupling of two cars - they are served by one team of conductors. We are gradually replacing rolling stock that has reached the limit of service life with new equipment units in order to ensure the timely and high-quality delivery of hundreds of millions of postal items. It was one of the reasons, why new cars are being commissioned on the eve of the peak period associated with the New Year holidays,” Igor Chebunin, Russian Post’s Acting Deputy Director General for Logistics said.

The service compartment in the new cars is equipped with air conditioning, a water disinfectant, a microwave oven, besides that in the decoration of the car more modern and environmentally friendly materials are used. The service life of new baggage and postal cars is 40 years, they have an increased volume of the cargo bay and augmented interrepair time, compared to postal cars of earlier construction. After completion of the purchase, the average age of the rolling stock of  Russian Post will be 18 years. The cars are equipped with a monitoring system that allows you to track their technical condition in real time, including the state of adjacent coupled cars.

In addition, part of the cars is equipped with a device for lowering the height of the coupler and the option of rolling of bogies with a gauge of 1,435 mm instead of the standard 1,520 mm for Russia, which in the future will make it possible to operate rolling stock on the PRC railway infrastructure.

“In 2015, we delivered to  Russian Post the first 50 cars designed and built to meet the most up-to-date requirements for postal and baggage transportation: to deliver more cargo, while reducing operating costs and improving the quality of services provided to consumers,” said Andrei Solovey, general director of TVZ plant. 

According to the results of the All-Russian competition “100 Best Products of Russia”, these cars were awarded the title “Winner” in the nomination “Industrial goods”.

Russian Post has completed the construction of a unified corporate data network

Russian Post and Rostelecom have finished the creation of a unified corporate data transmission network, which covered 37,000 postal services, including more than 15,000 Pochta Bank’s points of presence.

Today, the unified corporate data transmission network of  Russian Post is a dedicated private network (IP VPN) with the possibility of high-speed Internet access. Equipping 37,000 objects of  Russian Post with stable and modern communication channels is an infrastructural foundation that ensures the continuity of key postal services, a significant part of which was switched to digital format. This applies to written correspondence and postal items with goods, logistics, financial services.

In particular, in a short time, a highly popular service of simplified delivery of parcels was launched using a simple electronic signature that allows you to ensure the handing out of postal items without presenting a passport and reduce customer service time. Furthermore, the network infrastructure also supports the work of the Pochta Bank's customer centers that are open at the post offices.

“Stable operation of the corporate network is the basis of modern digital services of  Russian Post. The implementation of this project will allow the enterprise to develop effectively, improving the customer service quality, solving a wide range of socially important tasks and expanding the portfolio of online services provided to the public,” Sergey Yemelchenko, Russian Post’s Deputy Director General for Information Technologies and New Product noted.

“Building a data transmission network for Russian Post has become one of the largest Rostelecom’s projects lately. The implementation of this project is another step towards creating a digital economy and increasing the availability of digital services. I am confident that the use of secure data transmission channels and high-speed Internet access will make the services of Russian Post even more attractive to users,” Valery Ermakov, Rostelecom’s Vice President, Corporate and Government Segments commented.

Source: Russian Post