Document Type : applicative
Author
Planing and Economic Development Department, Faculty of Economics, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
A B S T R A C T
The Average share of the rail industry of freight The Average share of the rail industry of freight transportation for the last two decades is 11.5 percent and its average commercial speed is less than 4 km per hour. Freight trains departures and arrival times are not planned and predictable. In addition, there is a weak correspondence between railway infrastructure and the demand for rail freight transportation. If we consider these as an indicator of the not somehow desirable performance of rail freight transportation in Iran, then asking about the challenges of rail freight and its development strategies becomes relevant. Dealing with such issues is the main purpose of this paper. Challenges and strategies have been derived from deep interviews with the experts, according to the grounded theory. The results show that the improvement of rail freight transportation industry performance depends on (1) Separation of responsibility of regulatory, arbitration, and policy making from the Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran (RAI); (2) Managing RAI based on commercial logic and giving full responsibility for building the infrastructure and keeping it available; (3) Administration of movement, issuing bills of lading, granting licenses, setting timetables, and determining access rights based on the rules of the independent regulatory body, and (4) Considering full authority and responsibility in train management for freight companies.
Keywords
- Freight transportation
- Competitiveness
- Independent regulatory body
- Scheduled train operation
- and grounded theory
Main Subjects
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