Scientific toolkit for predictive efficiency management of railway transportation

The problem of uncertainty and early prediction of possible “breaking points” in the trends of changes in key performan ce indicators, which impedes long-term economic forecasting, is extremely serious, especially in such a capital-intensive industry as rail transport. For the purpose of preventive detection of changes in trends, the authors suggested using the “marginal factor of operating costs” as a forecasting tool, which will be the most sensitive to changes in the efciency of railways, playing the leading role, as compared to gross indicators or derived from them. This indicator with the developed classication of its zonal levels will allow initiating the adoption of the necessary managerial decisions, taking into account marginal revenues and marginal costs. An analysis of change in the marginal coefficient of operating costs, taking into account the effect of filling the capacity of the railway line on it, makes it possible to identify with high sensitivity the signals of emerging positive or negative changes in the level of efficiency. Thus, the timely formation and renement of measures for the development of the railway network, as well as the introduction of new transport products on the market, the implementation of innovative, including digital, technologies should be based on a scientic tool for predictive management of the efciency of rail transport. The marginal coefcient of operating costs as a leading indicator of efciency can become an indicative basis for such management. It is advisable to monitor the marginal coefficient of operating costs in the network as a whole, and also to develop the procedure for its evaluation by kinds of freight, directions of transportation and transport products. This will allow to prioritize the implementation of specific activities more justified, on the one hand, and to assess the effectiveness of its implementation on the other.