...Indian Railways – A monopoly Abstract In economics, monopoly (from Greek monos (alone or single) + polein (to sell)) exists when delivery of a particular product or service is completely controlled by an individual or an enterprise. This is in contrast to monopsony where there is only one buyer of a particular product or service; however there can be more than one provider. It is also different from cartel (a form of oligopoly) wherein several providers establish an institution and coordinate their actions and services. Indian Railways is the state-owned railway company of India having more than 64000 Kilometers of track and 6909 stations. It has the world’s 4th largest railway network after that of United States, Russia and China. It carries over 20 million passengers and 2 million tons of freight daily. It is one of the world’s largest commercial employers with more than 1.6 million employees. It owns over 200000 freight wagons, 50000 coaches and 8000 locomotives. Indian railways hold monopoly in rail transport in India. Source of their market power can be attributed to following factors 1. Capital Intensive venture, which can be understood from the fact that Indian railways has a separate budget each year 2. Economies of scale, as Indian railways operate all over India and thus have sufficient operating domain to achieve economies of scale which a new entrant cannot easily replicate 3. Government rules and regulations Indian railways has a position, which is not possible...
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...1. INTRODUCTION Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India's independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalized as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. Indian Railways operates both long distance and suburban rail systems. [pic][pic] Fig: Shows the top railways network in world Indian railway is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting 17 million passengers and more than 2 million tons of goods daily. IR is the world's largest commercial, with more than 1.6 million employees. The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country; the routes cover a total length of more than 63,327 km (39,500 miles). As of 2008, IR owned about 225,000 wagons, 45,000 coaches and 8,300 engines and ran more than 18,000 trains daily, including about 8,984 passenger trains and 9,387 goods trains. Annually it carries some 4.83 billion passengers and 492 million tons of goods. Of the 11 million passengers who climb aboard one of 8,984 trains each day, about 550,000 have reserved accommodations. Their journeys can start in any part of India and end in any other part, with travel times as long as 48 hours and distances up to several thousand kilometers. The challenge is to provide a reservation system that can support such a huge scale of operations — regardless of whether it's measured by kilometers, passenger numbers, routing complexity...
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...Indian Railways customer success story I n dustry • Public Sector BusI n ess Challenge • Providing a seamless and centralized process of purchasing and managing unreserved tickets syBase teCh nology • Adaptive Server® Enterprise • SQL Anywhere® • Replication Server® Key Ben efIts • Minimizes the transaction time of issuance to less than 20 seconds per ticket • Enables advance booking and cancellation of unreserved tickets from any station • Improves passenger satisfaction with 24x7 ‘Always Available’ ticketing • Minimizes possibilities of manipulations and malpractice • Enables centralized control for monitoring and auditing • Ensures accounting of the tickets sold across all railway zones • Sustains growth in passengers without any growth in staff • Simplifies changes in fare structure, destination and other database updates Indian Railways (IR), the largest rail network in Asia and the world’s second largest under one management, spanning over 6000 stations, carries 17 million passengers every day. Only a million passengers travel with reserved seat tickets, and the remaining 16 million passengers travel each day without a confirmed seat. While reserved ticketing technology is enabled, unreserved ticketing was done primitively using printed cards. Generating over 49% of its earnings, Indian Railways needed a solution to centralize the purchase and management of unreserved tickets...
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...PAKISTAN RAILWAYS INTRO Pakistan Railways provides an important mode of Transportation in the farthest corners of the country and brings them closer for Business, sight seeing, pilgrimage and education. It has been a great integrating force and forms the life line of the country by catering to its needs for large scale movement of people and freight. | | Pakistan Railways forms the life line of the country by catering to its needs for large scale movement of freight as well as passenger traffic. It not only contributes to its economic growth but also promotes national integration. Pakistan Railways endeavors to run the trains strictly in accordance to time table. The progressive freight train support organization operated by professional management and competent staff endavours to provide reliable, competitive and economical service of recognized standards to its customers. HISTORY: PR History | | Pakistan Railways provides an important mode of Transportation in the farthest corners of the country and brings them closer for Business, sight seeing, pilgrimage and education. It has been a great integrating force and forms the life line of the country by catering to its needs for large scale movement of people and freight. The possibility of Karachi as a sea port was first noticed in the mid of 19th century and Sir Henry Edward Frere who was appointed Commissioner of Sind after its annexation with Bombay in 1847 sought permission from Lord Dalhousie to begin...
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...Indian Railways – A monopoly Abstract In economics, monopoly (from Greek monos (alone or single) + polein (to sell)) exists when delivery of a particular product or service is completely controlled by an individual or an enterprise. This is in contrast to monopsony where there is only one buyer of a particular product or service; however there can be more than one provider. It is also different from cartel (a form of oligopoly) wherein several providers establish an institution and coordinate their actions and services. Indian Railways is the state-owned railway company of India having more than 64000 Kilometers of track and 6909 stations. It has the world’s 4th largest railway network after that of United States, Russia and China. It carries over 20 million passengers and 2 million tons of freight daily. It is one of the world’s largest commercial employers with more than 1.6 million employees. It owns over 200000 freight wagons, 50000 coaches and 8000 locomotives. Indian railways hold monopoly in rail transport in India. Source of their market power can be attributed to following factors 1. Capital Intensive venture, which can be understood from the fact that Indian railways has a separate budget each year 2. Economies of scale, as Indian railways operate all over India and thus have sufficient operating domain to achieve economies of scale which a new entrant cannot easily replicate 3. Government rules and regulations Indian railways has a position, which is...
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... and Railways play a key role in not only meeting the transport needs of the country, but also in binding together dispersed areas and promoting national integration. Indian Railways have emerged as the sinews of the Indian economy, and have reached out to bring together the great Indian family. Indian railway is a Central Government owned Railway Company of India, which owns and operates most of the country’s rail transport. Indian Railways has more than 64,215 kms of the track and 7,083 stations. It has the World’s fourth world’s largest network after those of the US, Russia and China. It carries 30 million passengers & .2.8 million tons of freight daily. Indian Railways, therefore, rightly occupy pride of place in the growth and development of the nation. Apart from normal trains connecting almost all part of the country, the Indian Railways also runs special luxury trains like the Palace on Wheels, Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, Fairy Queen, etc. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Railways play a crucial role in the modern economy. This project is done to identify and analyze the level of satisfaction of the consumers and their problems faced in the railways. It is one among the high preferable means of transport by the people of India. But there are various problems faced by them in different aspects in journey. OBJECTIVES To know the consumers awareness about the services provided by the railways. To study the consumer preferences towards railways. To...
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...Financial turnaround of the Indian Railways: Good Luck or Good Management? Abstract We analyse the factors that led to the turnaround of the Indian Railways from a low performing organisation to a high performing one. Literature on public sector turnaround provides the theoretical underpinnings. Enterprise turnaround is often ascribed to managerial leadership; we found that environmental factors (good luck) contributed in a substantial way to the success of Indian Railways. The implication of our study is that an organisation’s turnaround success needs to be put in a wider context. D. Gupta & M. Sathye Financial Turnaround of the Indian Railways ASARC WP 2007/13 3 On 15 April 2006, the Washington Times carried a lead story on the turnaround of the Indian Railways (IR) — a departmental organisation run by the Government of India (GOI). It stated ‘…few now doubt that Mr. Yadav (Minister for Railways) has presided over an impressive business turnaround ….more importantly, he’s taken the world’s largest employer — a government giant of 1.5 million employees — and boosted revenues by 15.5 percent without raising fares’ (Nelson, 2006:1). Pai Panandiker states ‘Indian Railways has turned around and made an estimated profit of $2.5 billion in 2005-2006. What is important, however, is that, unlike previous ministers, Mr. Yadav has looked upon Railways as a commercial enterprise and not a social welfare institution. [He] is a hard taskmaster and will ensure his subordinates ...
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...India should privatise railways for better efficiency India’s booming economy which is considered one of the fastest growing in the world demands better performance in transportation, especially when it comes to the case of gigantic sloth of Indian Railways (IR)! The behemoth public sector enterprise runs more than 18,000 trains daily and is comfortably one of the biggest rail networks in the world. However, it is yet to economise on the concept of modernisation and automation. In order to make the system more efficient, most of the nations across the world have privatised their mass transportation system. Undoubtedly, a better experience of travelling and transport can only be achieved by private participation and eventually it will also enhance the bottomline that has been looming at $48 billion as of 2009. IR currently suffers from dearth of resources. Sadly, the infrastructure and manufacturing capacity available to IR is never enough to meet the increasing demand of locomotives and wagons! Nor does India stand a chance to meet the international safety standards, efficiencies and finesse of the railway services of Europe and North America! The service efficiency post-privatisation in aviation sector should be replicated by IR for better management. The main chasm between the promise and the delivery is created by the monopoly of IR. Undeniably, competition in Europe has enhanced railway services there in abound. In India, it is astonishing to note that even manufacturing...
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...Operations Management at Aberdeen Railway Station Student name: Lukasz Szalasnik Table of contents 1. Executive summary 3 2. Introduction 3 3. Location 3 4. Station layout 4 5. 4 V’s objectives 4 6. Process technologies 5 7. Recommendations and conclusion 5 Bibliography 8 1. Executive summary The in-depth analysis of the operations management at the Aberdeen Railway Station has discovered some serious impediments to the efficiency and reliability of the existing system. Among the others, the most striking problem is vague visibility of the platforms which causes upset among the customers who have missed the train. Apart from that problem, the findings suggest, that most of the operations run smoothly. Costs of running the business are kept on a low level, which has been achieved with the flexibility of mixed functional and cell layout, and use of modern process technologies such as automatic gates and ticket machines. What is more, customers are tempted by the convenient and attractive location which provides perfect connections with other means of local, regional and national transport. 2. Introduction The purpose of this report is to analyze the operations and processes management that has been implemented at the Aberdeen Railway Station. The scope of the analysis includes a detailed description of the operation characteristics such as volume, variation, variety and visibility; as well as location determinants, layout design and customers’...
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...Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) The Canadian Northern Railway was founded in 1899 by William Mackenzie and Donald Mann. It was organized as a result of two small Manitoba branch lines and built up over the next twenty years. Mann and Mackenzie depended greatly on land grants and on sale of government guaranteed bonds of their company. They built a strong Prairie system but faced strong competition from their transcontinental rivals (the CPR, the Grand Trunk Railway, and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway). To meet the rivals standards a transcontinental expansion program was undertaken. However, the expansion was damaging and difficult financial needs caused Mann and Mackenzie to seek help from the government. In return for the help the...
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...Tianjin Railway Station Introduction Energy saving of buildings is ever-increasingly emphasized by modern society. With the emergence of innovative technologies, new materials, and sophisticated architectural design, designers are hard to know the energy consumption of a building. It will reduce the real meaning of building's energy consumption test if we conduct this test on a building already built. Therefore, it is recommended to simulate a building's energy consumption within project design stages. Owing to the complexity of the air conditioning process and the mechanism of thermal components, the work of analysis and computation is time-consuming. Meanwhile, simulation software advantages over the traditional way in the application of design compare and equipment selection. In a nutshell, building energy simulation softwares play a vital role in the analysis of building energy consumption. Tianjin Railway Station is the main railway transport hub of Tianjin city. With the help of software to simulate its air conditioning system and conduct energy analysis, we can obtain some salutary design advices, which are beneficial to the energy saving of Tianjin Railway Station. Introduction to Waiting Hall of Tianjin Railway Station Tianjin Railway Station is located in the center of Tianjin, at the junction of Heping District, Hedong District and Hebei District, and is the most important railway transport hub of Tianjin. Tianjin Railway Station is the largest railway station...
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...1 HIGHLIGHTS OF THE RAILWAY BUDGET 2014-15 Thrust 1. Safety 2. Project Delivery 3. Passenger Amenities/Services with focus on food services & on cleanliness, sanitation, toilets 4. Financial Discipline 5. Resource Mobilization 6. IT Initiatives 7. Transparency & System Improvements. Major Challenges facing the Railway System _ Vast tracts of hinterland waiting for rail connectivity. _ Railways expected to earn like a commercial enterprise but serve like a welfare organization. _ Railways carry Social Service Obligation of more than Rs 20,000 cr by carrying services below cost. This is nearly 16.6% of GTR and is almost half of Railways’ Plan Outlay under budgetary sources. _ Surplus revenues declining; Hardly any adequate resources for its development works. _ Tariff policy adopted lacked rational approach; passenger fares kept lower than costs; loss per passenger kilometer increased from 10 Paise per Km in 2000-01 to 23 Paise in 2012-13. _ ‘Decade of Golden Dilemma’ – choosing between commercial and social viability. _ Share of Railways in freight traffic coming down consistently. _ Rs 5 lakh crore required for ongoing projects alone. _ Focus so far in sanctioning more and more projects with inadequate prioritization rather than completing them; Of the 674 projects worth Rs 1,57,883 cr sanctioned in the last 30 years, only 317 could be completed. Completing the balance requires Rs 1,82,000 cr. _ Most of Gross Traffic Receipts is spent on fuel...
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...__________________________________________________________________________________________ LONDON VICTORIA STATION an analysis of the spatial complexity of the railway concourse. SHRUTI S SHETTY Advanced Architectural Studies University College London, UK. ABSTRACT With the development of the railways, the identity of the railway concourse has changed over the last century. The design of railways stations is one of the most challenging practices and the concourse design must provide for large fluid spaces to facilitate rapid movement. In addition to these, the modern station demands much more from a railway concourse. The National Rail has chalked out the key requirements for every station with Security, Information, Navigation and Facilities as one of the few Basic needs followed by Higher-level needs such as Retail and Catering. In the life of all cities, the railway station plays an important role in the day-to-day life of its citizens and thereby a constant effort has been made to keep up with increasing requirements of the concourse yet maintaining the fluidity of spaces. This report discusses the effect of a concourse layout and its relation with the urban context on the process of ‘navigation’ and ‘way finding’ in the system. Another aspect of railways stations is the way it fits into the urban system which determines the nature of the concourse and the way people interact with the space. Liverpool street station gives an impression of it being an enclosed...
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...Abstract Pakistan Railways is a national transport service of Pakistan. It’s head-quartered is in Lahore and is working under the Ministry of Railways. Pakistan Railway provides an important mode of transportation throughout Pakistan. It is commonly referred to as the "life line of the country", by aiding in large scale movement of people and freight throughout Pakistan. A railway all over the world is considered, cheapest, safest and efficient mode of passenger and freight carrier. Pakistan is no exception to this. Till 1970’s Pakistan railways used to be a profit earning entity. Due to successive governments tilt towards road network affected the railway operations. By introducing NLC (National Logistic Cell) during Zia’s regime railways started sliding downwards and till date has not been able to stand upon its legs. Railways need huge investments which was not forth coming by the governments who remain power one after the other. This not only affected the railway operation both in passenger as well as freight. The much needed investment in shape of infrastructure, equipment and material was not forth coming. The railway assets due to lack of repair and maintenance started becoming inoperative and obsolete. The lack of Government attention and apathy Pakistan railways has reached at its lowest ebb. The rolling stock and locomotives have outlived their utility. The only way through which Pakistan Railways can be broad back to its past glory if the Government injects heavy...
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...Environmental & Root Cause Analysis 5 Slowing Growth in NAFTA Trade 5 Continuation of NAFTA Strategy versus Expansion into Latin America 5 Taking Advantage of Economic Growth in Asia and Emerging Markets 5 Expanding Overseas 6 Alternatives and/or Options 6 Slowing Growth in NAFTA Trade 6 Continuation of NAFTA Strategy versus Expansion into Latin America 6 Taking Advantage of Economic Growth in Asia and Emerging Markets 7 Expanding Overseas 7 Recommendations and Implementation 7 Slowing Growth in NAFTA Trade 7 Continuation of NAFTA Strategy versus Expansion into Latin America 7 Taking Advantage of Economic Growth in Asia and Emerging Markets 8 Expanding Overseas 8 Monitor and Control 8 Executive Summary Since Canadian National Railway Company (CN)’s privatization by the Canadian government in November 1995, CN has not stopped growing its sales, profits, cash flow and, as a result, market value. Privatization and deregulation of the rail industry led to some of CN’s success, but CN had to cut costs and increase revenues. Cutting costs meant reducing workforce and closing or selling unprofitable tracks. It also meant investing in more efficient rail equipment and technology. Increasing revenues required focusing on customers’ needs and expectations. It also required attracting customers whose business was growing more rapidly. CN’s strategic plan was based on the following three thrusts: productivity, customer focus and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). ...
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