Expenses

Company’s operating expenses totalled RUB 204.9bn in the reporting period. Savings against 2013 reached 1.8% or RUB 3.8bn.

Carriage costs

The major part of carriage costs was infrastructure payments and locomotive lease costs — 53.6% of the total volume (RUB 189.7bn).

Carriage costs amounted to RUB 189.7bn, 97.8% to the previous year’s level (with the consumer price index growth at 7.4%).

Payroll costs totalled RUB 28.5bn (99.4% of the previous year’s level). Saving is due to downsizing of the workforce to the volume of the work performed, reduction of baggage offices with low activities, liquidation of repair bays in car depots and switching to part-time work in the period of traffic drop.

Material costs totalled RUB 6.1bn (101.6% of the previous year’s level). Due to the decrease in the volume of the work, the repair and maintenance programme was decreased thus allowing to reduce the demand for new materials and repair of reusable materials (wheel pairs, other spare parts).

On the whole, fuel and electricity costs totalled RUB 1.08bn (96.0% of the previous year’s level). Fuel and electricity consumption was reduced due to optimisation of electricity consumption by 3%, fuel consumption — by 3.6%.

Other material costs totalled RUB 22.6bn (93.0% of the previous year’s level). Cost optimisation allowed the reduction of rolling stock repair, maintenance and preparation costs. Also, current building, constructions and general business operating equipment repair costs were reduced by 35.5%.

Depreciation costs reached RUB 12.9bn (97.5% of the previous year’s level). Reduction was achieved due to conservation of 1,691 units of depreciation (including cars and equipment).

Other material costs totalled RUB 110.6bn (98.1% of the previous year’s level). The main saving of RUB 3.3bn arose from infrastructure costs due to decrease in car kilometer work of trains made up by JSC FPC, international trains made up by foreign railways and railways administrations of CIS and Baltic countries that travelled within the boundaries of the JSC RZD infrastructure.

Savings on the rest of other costs of RUB 0.7bn were reached through optimisation of telecommunication costs, keeping in-house a security and watchman service, personnel training, medical check-ups and business travel expenses as well as through the optimisation of management body costs.

• Zoom

Carriage costs, %

Other sales costs

Other sales costs in 2014 totalled RUB 15.2bn, a 3.8% increase from the the 2013 level.

The increase was due to a growth in non-carriage services in trains, expansion of these services to all cars in branded trains (that do not participate in the dynamic pricing system), supported by the respective growth in income.

Overhaul Programme

Actual expenses for overhaul of fixed assets in 2014 amounted to RUB 8.5 billion. A reduction of 15.0% versus 2013.

Actual expenses for overhaul of fixed assets in 2014 amounted to RUB 8.5 billion. This was a reduction of 15.0% versus 2013:

• overhaul of passenger rail cars — by RUB 0.3 billion;
• due to the reduction of the production repair programme at car repair plants by 86 rail cars: overhaul of the first volume — by 31 rail cars (RUB 0.1 billion), overhaul of the second volume — by 55 rail cars (RUB 0.2 billion);
• by RUB 0.1 billion due to the reduction of the cost indexation applicable to main rolling stock repair to 4.2% which is 1.2% below the indexation level under relevant agreements;
• the expenses under the itemised list of overhaul of production facilities at JSC FPC Branch decreased by RUB 0.1 billion.

Cost optimisation programme

In order to stabilise the Company’s financial activities in 2014, an Anti-crisis Programme was developed, as well as projects covering key areas with a targeted savings of RUB 14.6 billion. The actual savings based on the operations results amounted to RUB 15.3 billion which was 4.3% above the target.

Main outcomes of the projects under the Anti-crisis Programme:

Movement Project

• wagon kilometres for the infrastructure of JSC Russian Railways decreased by 5.6% year-on-year;
• train turnover for the infrastructure of JSC Russian Railways decreased by 4.1% year-on-year;
• in order to optimise the transportation process, 107 trains were cancelled;
• the intervals between eight trains were lengthened;
• 550 additional time-tabled trains were cancelled.

Fixed Assets Repair, Equipment Maintenance, and Fuel Resources Project

• programmes were curtailed for the overhaul of 86 rail cars, maintenance of 62,000 rail cars, and internal and external washing of 48,180 rail cars.

Personnel Project

• headcount was reduced by 6,093 employees, including 1,229 employees transferred to part-time work;
• salary indexation was discontinued with an effect RUB 305 million.

Luggage Project

• A total of 220 low-density luggage desks were closed.

Rolling Stock Repair and Capacity Utilisation Project

• production programmes were optimised;
• subject to wagon kilometres reduction by 7.2% year-on-year, maintenance (MT-1) and current repair scopes decreased by 5.3%.

Miscellaneous Project

• optimised expenses for telecommunications, in-house security and watchman services, personnel training, medical examinations, travel expenses, as well as administration support.

Employee headcount and payroll

The headcount of personnel involved in transportation in 2014 was 65,893 employees which was 2,909 employees fewer than in 2013 (4.2%) taking into account replacement of outstaffed passenger car attendants.

Since July 2014, outstaffing personnel has not been engaged at passenger trains, while in Q3 and Q4 2013 there were 4,300 and 1,778 outstaffed employees respectively.

A total of 2,173 employees (7%) were laid off on the jobs not directly related to servicing passengers en route.

In relation to the anti-crisis measures, the wagon depots in Kemerovo, Rostov, Ruzaevka, Abakan, and Liski were either closed or restructured with 552 FTEs, or 227 actual employees, laid off.

Since the second half of the reporting year, the administrative headcount has been reduced by 10% with 99 employees laid off (or 303 FTEs optimised).

The implementation of electronic ticket selling systems resulted in headcount reduction by 539 ticket clerks or optimisation of 646 FTEs.

Closing of inefficient luggage desks resulted in the optimisation of 79 receiving clerks (headcount) or 307 FTEs.

Additionally to the said measures, improvement of operational and performance standards allowed the Company to cut headcount by 1,229 employees (versus 783 employees in 2013) by introducing part-time jobs.

As a result of anti-crisis measures, payroll expenses were aligned with the work scope (94.1%).