In 2013, for the first time since the Company had been established, it had to deal with a decline in passenger numbers. The total number of passenger-kilometres in 2013 was 107.0 billion, down 6.1% on the 2012 figure.
To improve the financial performance, the Company reduced the number of short trains and low occupancy trains (except for socially important ones).
To improve the quality of services provided to passengers, extend the choice of seats, implement a loyalty programme and a dynamic pricing program, the Company adopted a policy according to which trains are made up a fixed number of cars, with no cars being coupled or uncoupled en route. This approach helped improve earnings per passenger seat despite a decline in train occupancy to 71.5 %, down 2.4% on the previous year’s level.
Passenger turnover in trains made up in CIS and Baltic countries totalled 10.1 billion passenger-kilometres or 94.2% of the previous year’s level.
In order to attract additional passengers, a range of measures was taken to satisfy the demand to the maximum extent possible, which made it possible to limit the drop in the number of kilometres travelled by the cars to 2.8% on the 2012 figure (it was 3.5 billion car-kilometres).
A passenger train of JSC FPC had 13.3 cars on average in the reporting period.
| Indicators | 2012 | 2013 | Growth on 2012, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passenger turnover, billion passenger-kilometres | 114.0 | 107.0 | —6.1 |
| — in trains made up by JSC FPC | 103.3 | 96.9 | —6.2 |
| deregulated segment | 35.4 | 33.4 | —5.9 |
| regulated segment | 67.9 | 63.6 | —6.4 |
| — in trains made up in CIS and Baltic countries | 10.7 | 10.1 | —5.8 |
| Passengers carried, million passengers | 114.2 | 108.6 | —4.9 |
| deregulated segment | 43.3 | 41.9 | —3.1 |
| regulated segment | 70.9 | 66.7 | —6.0 |
| Average number of cars in a train, cars | 13.4 | 13.3 | —0.7 |
| Seat usage | 73.9% | 71.5% | —2.4 p. p. |
| JSC FPC’s share in the number of passengers carried by comparable transport inside Russia (excluding trains made up in CIS and Baltic countries) | 55.4% | 52.2% | —3.2 п. п. |
| Inventory fleet (cars) | 23,378 | 22,294 | —4.6 |
| Fleet in service (cars) | 20,205 | 19,308 | —4.4 |
| Labour productivity, RUB thousand | 1,451 | 1,409 | —2.9 |
In 2013, year-round express trains accounted for the greatest share of passenger turnover among all trains made up by JSC FPC, carrying 59% of all passengers; the share of express trains increased by 4.3%.
The share of passengers travelling in second-class sleepers cars in 2013 increased by 0.6 percentage points, totalling 71.8%; the share of passengers choosing sleepers decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 26.4%; 0.8% of passengers were carried in standard cars, which matches the 2012 figure; popularity of first-class cars grew by 0.2 percentage points to 1.1%.
The most popular routes (with more than 0.8 million passengers per year) were from Moscow to Saint-Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Kazan, Saratov, Voronezh, Ruzaevka, Bryansk, Samara, Orel and Kursk.
| Factors | Impact by segments | |
|---|---|---|
| deregulated segment | regulated segment | |
| Cancellation of unprofitable trains | —1.7% | —0.8% |
| Indexation of passenger service rates | —2.5% | —2.5% |
| Macroeconomic situation | —2.7% | —3.9% |
| Promotions | 1.0% | — |
| Increase in the number of car dispatches in peak periods | — | 0.8% |
| TOTAL | —5.9% | —6.4% |