The State Railway Administration (Ukrzaliznytsia) intends to replace trains with passenger buses on the most unprofitable routes, Ukrzaliznytsia’s acting head Oleksandr Zavhorodnyi has announced, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
"We have a number of routes on which two railcars operate two or three times a week, carrying five passengers. That notwithstanding, a locomotive has to be provided for them, and we spend a lot of money on maintenance and fuel. It is cheaper to buy three or four buses for transporting passengers," he said at a news briefing in Kiev on Tuesday.
Zavhorodnyi noted that this idea is not new and that this mechanism is used in France and Germany.
Previously, Ukrzaliznytsia has repeatedly stated that that it has unprofitable train routes and that it has problem servicing them.
As the CFTS portal previously reported, the following passenger trains had the lowest occupancy rates in 2014:
No. 797/794 Kharkov-Konotop-Sumy (average occupancy of 22%)
No. 670 Zaporozhe-Berdyansk (22%)
No. 512 Zaporozhe-Berdyansk (23%)
No. 798 Sumy-Kharkov (33%)
Nos. 173/174, 791/792 Kharkov-Sumy (41%)
No. 669/670 Kremenchug-Bakhmach (45%)
No. 766 Kiev-Shostka (48%)
Nos. 174/173, 792/791 Sumy-Kharkov (50%)
No. 609 Kharkov-Rubezhnoye-Lysichansk (51%)
Nos. 184, 784 Kiev-Shostka (53%)
