In 2013, Samand Rail Company, following the handing over of wagons based on the decision made based on principle 44, was a joint product of the cooperation of Iran Khodro and the Railways. During the following years, the railway sold its shares in several stages and completely withdrew from the complex. In 2013, Iran Khodro came to the conclusion that it should acquire major shares and bring its mission in the field of Iran Khodro to the fore. Therefore, he bought the 40% block of Naja Cooperative Company. Currently, 91% of Samand Rail’s shares belong to Iran Khodro and 9% of it belongs to Middle East Tidewater Company. With the increase in the capital that Iran Khodro plans for Tharaniril, the company’s capital will reach one thousand billion Rials.According to the CEO of this company, in the 16th year of its establishment, the position of Tharaniril in the logistics field of Iran Khodro and beyond is much different from the role it had in the early years of its activity, and in the last half of the second decade of its life, it has matured in the field of transportation and logistics. it is arrived. One of the objections that the owners of goods bring to rail transportation in the field of cargo is the time delay. Transit time is an important issue in transportation. If no commitment is made to the goods owner on the issue of transit time, rail customers will lose their trust in the rail industry.According to the announcement of the CEO of Samand Rail Company, this complex, in cooperation with the Commercial Deputy of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company, has been preparing a scheduled cargo train for almost two months and since then this train has been running and it is supposed to be running permanently. He believes that this issue will create a big change in the country from the railway point of view, and considering the difference in rail freight compared to road freight, this issue can be a great help to the owners of goods in reducing the cost of the product. To learn about the measures taken in the field of freight trains, we have interviewed Amirreza Taherian, CEO of Samand Rail Company, which you will read below.
You mentioned that in addition to carrying Iran Khodro company’s cargo, Tsaryanil is also providing services to other companies. Please tell me in which fields are those companies active?
In 1994, with the addition of road transportation services to the service portfolio, Saarigil turned from a one-way rail transport company into a multi-way company, and in 1995, full maturity was achieved in this field.Entering the field of road transportation is based on wisdom gained in the shadow of almost two decades of activity in the field of railways, and it was done to solve the lack of sufficient coverage of the country’s rail network and to create the possibility of capillary distribution of customers’ cargoes, and the railway company acknowledges the success of companies which have the possibility to complete their service portfolio with services such as road transportation and warehousing, is a confirmation of this issue.
Since 1996, based on the five-year plan and strategy, warehousing and unloading and loading services of all kinds of goods have been added to the service portfolio of the complex, and today, in 2099, we are at your service with something amounting to 9 hectares of storage space and docks in Aparin dry port complex.Samand Rail is also active in the field of international and forward transportation, and transporting five trains directly from China for Iran Khodro and other reputable domestic companies is one of the successful experiences of the group in this field.The mentioned items are the level of our service, which primarily belongs to Iran Khodro Industrial Group and serves to reduce the price of transportation and logistics of the group. After the presence of Dr. Moghimi, as the CEO of Iran Khodro Industrial Group, special attention was paid to the category of cargo rail transportation. The result of this opinion was the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iran Khodro, with the agency of Tharaniril, to increase the volume of Iran Khodro’s logistics activities based on rail transportation.According to the task presented by Iran Khodro Industrial Group regarding the development of the market and that the life and growth index of the company requires its presence in other markets as well, Tsaryanil has a prominent presence in the market of transporting steel cargoes and considering having the largest number of container wagons in The country has always felt a mission in order to establish a regular container train.As you know, the containers often belong to shipping lines or companies other than the company that owns the cargo, and the owners of the goods must unload the cargo and return the empty container to the ship within a certain period of time after receiving the container from the ship. The aforementioned is subject to demurrage charges for goods owners, and the often long transit time of rail transport has made customers reluctant to carry container cargoes by rail.In this regard, Samand Rail, with the cooperation of the Honorable Deputy Minister of Commerce and Railway Operation, for the first time in the country, two months ago, started a trial run of a regular container train from Shahid Rajaei port to Tehran. The appropriate transit time is three days to reach the destination. Considering the cost-effectiveness of rail transportation compared to road transportation and the significant share of transportation cost in the total price of goods, it can reduce the total price of goods for dear producers and a lot of good for the people of the country.
Has Tharaniril accepted the risk of some wagons being empty?
Tharaniril has accepted this risk, of course, I must mention that the railway has also agreed to provide support packages in this regard. In recent years, the approach of the railways has become very flexible, along with the private sector and customer-oriented, and is willing to provide several incentives to launch new corridors.
What is the number of the sea fleet in different fields, including rail and road, and what other logistic infrastructures can be mentioned?
The Tarian rail fleet consists of 733 wagons in three flat types, with 305 of which we rank first among the owners of this type of wagon in the country, as well as 148 car-carrying wagons, which also ranks first in the country, and 280 short-sided wagons. These types of wagons are usually used to transport general cargo and steel cargo, of course, these wagons can also carry containers.The 9-hectare dock in Aprin, which has a roof of 18,000 square meters, is one of the other assets of Tsaryanil, which provides the possibility of providing unloading and loading services for all types of cargo, as well as storage and delivery of goods at the time requested by the customer. More than 50 tractors and 70 types of trailers, which are usually used to carry Iranian automobile cargo, including parts, bodies, and products, and a terminal with an area of 11,000 square meters at kilometer 9 of the Tehran-Karaj road is dedicated to road transportation. It is road transport.Numerous agencies in all parts of the country, including in Bandar Abbas as the main entry point of the country, Khorasan Razavi, Isfahan, Tabriz, etc., are among the other facilities that enable Tharaniril to provide the most complete and best possible transportation and logistics services to customers and owners.
In this section, let’s talk about Aparin port, which was inaugurated last year in the presence of the Minister of Roads and Urban Development and respected CEOs of the railway and Iran Khodro companies. What was the amount of investment made by Tharaniril and how long will you be using this project?
Aperin port project was started in 2016 through a BOT contract between Tsarigil and the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways to equip the initial space of 4 hectares, with an investment of 110 billion Rials and 10 years of operation, but due to the economic conditions of 2017 and the significant increase in prices, so far, 75 The percentage of the project is ready and under operation. The amount has been spent many times more than the initial estimate. We are consulting with the railways to increase the operation period and acquire more space, according to the amount of investment.Aparin dry port project in a space of about 400 hectares has existed in the railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran for more than 40 years, and the entry of Iran Khodro Industrial Group into this complex can promise the establishment of a logistics village in this unique complex in the shortest distance of space and time. It is located near Tehran and Nasim Shahr road terminal. Regarding Aparin railway station, it is important to mention that the main operating station of the Tehran General Directorate of Railways is in the vicinity of Islamshahr, and all freight cars passing through or leading to Tehran stop at this station and move to their destinations after re-maneuvering.
How has using Aperin dock affected the quality and quantity of your services?
Aprin port has significantly completed our services. After adding road transportation to the company’s service portfolio, we found that sometimes the goods owners are not ready to receive their shipments quickly and at once, and they may want to receive their orders at different points and times.For example, some of the sheets ordered by Iran Khodro belong to the parts makers, which in the past were transported from Mobarakeh steel to Aparin within 3 days and were separated/connected again and connected to the locomotive in order to be transported to Iran Khodro at this station for various reasons. Including the lack of locomotives for this process and the arrival of cargo from Aprin to the Lashkari station in Iran Khodro, which is about 20 kilometers away, it also takes 3 days.By using the Aperin dock as the missing link in this chain, the time it takes for steel shipments to reach Iran Khodro has been reduced by half, while steel shipments belonging to other component manufacturers have not entered Iran Khodro, and its distribution to the component manufacturers is not subject to the bureaucracies governing large and sensitive companies like Iran Khodro.Using Aperin and equipping it with all kinds of unloading and loading equipment such as reach stacker, boom truck, forklift with different capacities, etc., has brought Tsaryanil to self-sufficiency in the goods transportation and logistics chain and placed it among the so-called 3PL companies. which can provide warehouse-to-warehouse transportation services to goods owners.
Explain more about 3PL companies.
3PL companies generally refer to companies that can provide courier/transportation, logistics, warehousing and forwarding services at the same time. In such a way that they can receive a product from the owner of the product in one part of the world and deliver it to another part of the world by issuing a nationwide bill of lading and transporting the product by different methods of transportation and, if necessary, storing it at the time requested by the owner of the product.
What was the tonnage of the company’s freight last year?
Last year, in the field of containers, we transported more than 30,000 TEUs (one TUE is equivalent to one 20-foot container unit), more than 20,000 vehicles, and more than 800,000 tons of steel cargo. In terms of warehousing, we used all the available capacities, of which almost 60% was related to Iran Khodro Industrial Group and 40% was related to industries such as component manufacturing, steel, oil and gas industries of the country in the form of transporting pipes and equipment.
Considering that we are in the year of production boom, what are your plans for cargo transportation this year?
According to the special view that the CEO of Iran Khodro Industrial Group has on the logistics category, targeting the sales of 2099 is somewhat challenging for the group, and considering the more prominent role that has been considered for Tsaryanil in order to develop rail transportation services and reduce the cost of logistics of Iran Khodro Industrial Group. The goal of the current year is 2.5 times the last year’s planned and by comparing the sales of the first 5 months of the current year compared to the same period last year, this growth ratio has been achieved so far.In this regard, we hope to be able to repeat our success in the field of international shipping like last year. For this purpose, we are negotiating with the senior managers of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company and Iran Khodro in order to be able to launch an international rail route from CIS countries so that we can transport the goods purchased from China to the country by rail.This railway route passes through the neighboring country of China, namely Kazakhstan, and enters the territory of Iran through Turkmenistan. The approximate length of this train is about eight thousand kilometers. To date, we have transported 4 trains from China for reliable domestic manufacturers, and as one of the two companies approved by the railway in the field of international transportation, we hope to be able to use this corridor as an alternative to sea transportation.
What are the bottlenecks and obstacles of rail transportation in the country?
We have many limitations in the railway industry, and one of these limitations is the view of the government; One of the reasons for the lack of interest in rail transportation is the high cost of this industry.Every rail transport company must pay more than 60% of the profit from the sale of its services under the right of access to the rail network and the right of locomotives to the Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Considered with the owners of the goods, it also affects the rail transport companies. This lack of luck has resulted in many companies not being active in the railway industry.
In the last two years, we have seen the good cooperation of the railways, especially in the commercial fields, as a public sector with the thought of attracting the private sector, it leaves the form of a public company and tries to attract the owners of goods to rail transport. But we have deep challenges in the railway industry, one of which is the lack of production of some spare parts for wagons inside the country.Currently, some parts such as wheels, brakes, and some types of springs are not produced in the country, and these parts are sometimes supplied second-hand from abroad, which requires the efforts of the railway officials and industry trustees to overcome this situation. In addition to this, there is the theft of parts of wagons, and unfortunately, I must say that there is not a month that we do not have reports of theft of parts of our wagons.
Another problem is the inequality in the right of access and management of the country’s transportation network, which has made it impossible to compete with the road sector, especially in distances below 500 km. For transportation in the road sector, almost no fees have been paid for using the country’s roads, and only 4.8% of the freight amount has been paid for issuing the bill of lading, and including the cost of goods insurance, 10% of the freight amount is deducted, while in rail transportation, more than 60% of the freight is paid to the railway for access rights and locomotive rights.On the other hand, each new freight wagon costs more than one billion tomans, and the increase of new wagons is not economically justified for companies. Considering the emphasis of the Supreme Leader and the clarity of the upstream laws in the expansion of the country’s rail industry, I hope that the authorities will pay special attention to this industry, because this industry is one of the greenest and safest sectors of transportation and is one of the indicators of the countries’ development.