The first phase of Aparin port in the largest dry port near the capital was officially opened with the presence of the Minister of Roads and Urban Development and CEOs of the Railway and Iran Khodro companies.
Amirreza Taherian, the CEO of Samand Rail Company, while announcing this, said: The construction of Aparin loading dock is in the form of a joint cooperation agreement between the railway company and Iran Khodro and in line with provisions 24 and 25 of the general policies of the 6th development plan of the country announced by the Supreme Leader, which focuses on the development of transportation. Rail is done. In line with the implementation of this part of the policies and following the consecutive meetings of the top managers of the two organizations, agreements were reached, which became the basis for setting up a memorandum of understanding for the maximum utilization of rail logistics capacities, and the construction of Aperin logistics dock was a prelude to the implementation of this agreement.
He added: The initial theory of the construction of this wharf, located in the lands of the Aparin railway station as the largest dry port adjacent to the capital, was formed in 2016 in the joint meetings of the senior managers of the railway and Iran Khodro. The framework of this theory included economic investment by the investor, construction of facilities and warehouse for general cargo and container cargo. Even at the same time, the public auction was held at the international level by the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways and led to the conclusion of a long-term contract, which, unfortunately, was affected by the sanctions, and its operational results were delayed. Samand Rail, as a specialized rail department, made Iran Khodro inevitable in this area.Taherian further said: After intensive and long negotiations and signing a long-term contract with the railways, Tsaryanil started the construction of covered and unroofed warehouse space in a land area of 40,000 square meters, the implementation of the first phase of which was completed in the winter of 2017. After the temporary delivery period, its official opening was realized on 20 Bahman 2018 with the presence of the Honorable Minister of Roads and Urban Development, the Honorable CEO of Railways, the Honorable CEO of Iran Khodro and senior managers of both sides.
He said about the benefits and potential capacity of Aparin dock: the operation of Aparin dock has direct results in increasing rail transportation and indirect results in the field of increasing capacity in economic storage. In the first phase, the annual rail transportation capacity of Iran Khodro’s steel shipments from domestic producers will increase up to 250 thousand tons, and in the second phase, there is a possibility of increasing the capacity up to 350 thousand tons and finally turning Aperin into the hub of Iran Khodro’s steel shipments. In the medium term, due to the concentration of tools, logistics equipment and human resources working with logistics engineering skills, services such as unloading, loading and opening container cargoes can also be performed.
The CEO of Samand Rail added: “Aperin loader will reduce freight charges for Iran Khodro and the owners of the goods by approximately 20-35%, and it will also achieve significant results at the national level. We all know that advantages such as high capacity, energy consumption And low pollution, low fares and safety compared to other means of transportation have made the railway known as a safe and economical means of communication. On the other hand, in the area of social responsibilities, according to statistics, the number of people killed on the road is 330 times that of the rail sector, and in other words, 99.7% of this index is allocated to the road sector and less than 0.3% to the railway sector.
Also, the comparison of the fuel consumption index in the rail and road sector is 1 to 6 and the variable pollution index is 1 to 20, which shows that the results of all these cases show the successful performance of the railway sector. On the other hand, Aparin Port provides a reliable scale for the implementation of services that can be provided by a logistics park to merchants and goods owners. Referring to the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the CEOs of the Railways and Iran Khodro, on the sidelines of the opening of the first phase of Aparin Port, he said: this memorandum is the result of the meetings. Successive managers and experts of both sides in different areas of infrastructure, transportation and operation, cross-border activities, it has been possible to mutually use the engineering and construction capacities of both sides.This memorandum is aimed at creating a mechanism to increase the efficiency of the rail fleet and reduce the travel time of cargo, create a mechanism for the development of rail infrastructure in the production sites of Iran Khodro Khorasan and Iran Khodro Tabriz, take the necessary measures for the development of international rail transportation of Iran Khodro container cargo and transfer experience, localization and the sharing of operational experiences in the field of parts manufacturing was concluded, and in most part of the agreements, Tsaryanil is responsible for the follow-up and implementation of operations in cooperation with the relevant departments in the railway company on behalf of Iran Khodro Industrial Group.
The CEO of Iran Khodro specialized rail company said about increasing the productivity of the rail fleet: If the time of carrying a cargo in the transportation process is reduced, for example, it is halved, it means that you have carried out twice with the same means of transport and increased the efficiency of the fleet. Forming a train and carrying out the rail transport process has various parameters and various influencing factors in the origin, route and destination. For example, when a container cargo is going to be loaded and transported by rail from Shahid Rajaei port in Bandar Abbas, the active organizations and systems involved in this process should all perform their activities in a certain and timely manner while being coordinated and timely.During intensive and productive meetings at the expert and management level, it was possible to establish a regular freight train from Bandar Abbas to Aprin and vice versa from 5 February 2018, so that the travel time was reduced by half and as a result, the efficiency of the fleet increased by two times. This process will be continuous and the implementation of the WAGON POOL project centered on Samand Rail in the container area is one of the other provisions of the memorandum.