Cargo owners have identified key problems when working with Ukrainian Railways

The biggest problems of cargo owners during rail transportation are the inflexibility of pricing by Ukrainian Railways (UZ), untimely and inaccessible information about events with the car/cargo, inaccessibility of information on the location of cars and failure to meet the established deadlines for cargo delivery.

These are the results of a survey of rail shippers conducted from May 6 to 14, 2025. Its purpose was to assess the operational efficiency of Ukrainian Railways, identify problematic issues, and improve the interaction between UZ and its customers.

The respondents rated the quality of UZ services with the following average scores (from 1 to 10)

• flexibility of pricing of JSC Ukrainian Railways and compliance with market conditions (tariff, cost of related services) – 4.6
• timeliness and availability of information about events with the car/cargo during transportation – 5.2;
• availability of information on the location of the wagon – 5.2;
• compliance with the established terms of cargo delivery by the carrier – 5.6;
• efficiency and quality of solving problematic/non-standard situations by UZ employees – 5.9;
• availability of sufficient number and type of rolling stock in good technical and commercial condition – 6.3;
• availability of information about available services of UZ and convenience of communication channels – 6.4;
• speed and convenience of concluding contracts with UZ – 6.6;
• communication with UZ employees in the process of transportation organization – 6.6;
• smooth interaction between the system of planning and approval of applications for transportation in the Mesplan AS – 6.8;
• safety of cargo / cars during transportation – 6.8;
• reliability and timeliness of mutual settlements for services rendered – 7.1;
• convenience of work in the information systems of UZ – 7.2;
• ease of processing transportation and related documents during transportation – 7.6.

The lowest score for the factor “compliance with the terms of cargo delivery” was given by respondents transporting agricultural cargo (3.5), and the highest (7.0) by coal shippers.

The overall Customer Effort Score of Ukrainian Railways is 6.01 points. The easier the interaction was for the customer, the higher the score.

The Net Promoter Score of Ukrainian Railways is only 27%. It shows the commitment of service consumers to the company. The percentage of those who criticize the company is 48%, with a neutral attitude of 30%. A positive attitude is felt by 21% of respondents.

The index of readiness to recommend is negative, meaning that a larger number of respondents do not recommend cooperation with the company. The scores for mining and metals cargo carriers are diametrically opposed: ore -51.7, metal – +10.

According to Valeriy Tkachev, Deputy Director of the Commercial Operations Department at Ukrainian Railways, the state carrier offers the following tariff initiatives:

1. Increased flexibility in pricing for transportation services in Ukrainian Railways cars. Ensuring the sale of grain cars, gondola cars and other rolling stock through the Prozorro.Sale system for a period of 1 to 6 months. Sales under long-term contracts.
2. Flexibility in pricing for terminal and other logistics services. Developing proposals for pricing a range of services (package services) for current client services, including the organization of cargo transportation and related services.
3. Inter-terminal logistics. Providing discounts on UZ cars for transportation between the terminals of the Liski CPC and for transportation from the Liski CPC to seaports and western crossings.
4. Improvement of freight transportation tariffs. Long-term predictable indexation of tariffs, unification of tariffs, discounts for route shipments.

Regarding the timeliness and availability of information about events with a car/cargo during transportation and deployment of cars, Ukrainian Railways offers the following:

1. Speeding up the notification of delays in wagons and cargo.
2. Introduction of the function of automatic informing of the consignor/consignee about delays of cargo/wagons in transit, including the reasons for such delays in accordance with the issued acts, in the UZ Cargo portal.
3. Ukrainian Railways is open to proposals to improve the information on the location of wagons, which is currently provided on a paid basis.

Valeriy Tkachev also said that UZ can offer suggestions on how to meet the deadlines for cargo delivery:

1. Consider the possibility of delivering certain cargoes at an increased speed, subject to an increase in transportation tariffs.
2. Introduce the function of informing the sender about the time of arrival of the cargo (currently for route shipments).
3. Work with the Ministry of Development to cancel the order of the Ministry of Infrastructure No. 571 dated 29.07.2022, which was introduced for the period of martial law and concerns the calculation of delivery times by rail. Subject to the identification of certain force majeure events that exempt Ukrainian Railways from liability (blocking of ports, western crossings, destruction of critical infrastructure elements).

To promptly resolve problematic/non-standard situations in the provision of services, Ukrainian Railways is ready to do the following:

1. Restart the CRM system of the contact center.
2. Implementation of a “single window” for solving customer problems. Organize all communication with customers through the contact center.

A total of 227 respondents took part in the survey, including 19% of grain shippers, 16% of construction materials, 5.6% of ore, and 5.6% of metals. It is expected that such surveys will be conducted on a quarterly basis. The possibility of conducting the surveys under the auspices of the RST under the Ministry of Development is being considered.

As a reminder, in 2024, Ukrainian Railways earned UAH 20.4 billion in operating profit from freight transportation, down 2.3% year-on-year, while the operating loss from passenger transportation increased by 15.4% y/y – to UAH 18.1 billion.

As GMK Center reported earlier, Ukrainian Railways intention to raise freight tariffs by 37% may have a significant impact on the entire Ukrainian economy. In particular, this could lead to an increase in overall logistics costs, higher production costs and loss of competitiveness, a decline in production and exports, higher industrial inflation, etc.