Russian Railways and FESCO launch fully electronic document flow for import cargo to reduce shipping time through Vladivostok by 4 days
Russian Railways PJSC and FESCO Transportation Group are launching a service for electronic document flow for intermodal shipments of import freight through the Commercial Port of Vladivostok («VMTP», is part of FESCO Transportation Group), hence being able to reduce transit time by 4 days – from 5 days to 21 hours, FESCO says in a press release. The first container freight shipping with the documents processed electronically was made September 4th, 2019, in VMTP in presence of Aleksandr Misharin (the first deputy general director of Russian Railways PJSC) and Yurij Tsvetkov (Deputy Minister of transport of Russia).
New technology is based on the existing legal framework and includes up to 30 paperless operations. To this regard mobile workplaces were made for gaugers and tallymen, railway primary documentation and transport documents were converted into electronic format, Federal Customs Service allowed electronic closing procedure for customs transit.
In the first intermodal shipping from Yokohama to Moscow, including maritime and railway transport, containers with spare car parts and accessories will be delivered. Sojitz Corporation and Subaru Motor LLC took part in test shipping.
In the first phase of implementing INTERTRAN project the service will allow processing electronic documents for imports, then it will expand to the formalities for shipments of transit cargo from APAC countries to Europe.
“As a result of uniting information systems of the port, FESCO Company, Russian Railways and customs services, shippers are offered a unified convenient product. It’s a matter of minutes to handle a shipment anywhere in the world using this technology”, Aleksandr Misharin noted.
“I think that we took a major step towards digital transformation of transport and logistics industry. I am sure that we will not stop at this point, and our next goal is to implement INTERTRAN in transit process, which is a development priority of the entire industry”, Aleksandrs Isurins, President of FESCO, pointed out.
Using electronic format of intermodal shipping documents is implemented through INTERTRAN project, which was initiated by Russian Railways PJSC in 2017 during UIC Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly. Participants of the project have been implementing e-documents full usage starting from 2017, when it became possible to process electronic customs declaration, in 2018 – electronic railway consignment notes, and in 2019 the document flow finally could be entirely processed in electronic format as well as the document exchange between Russian Railways and the Federal Customs Service.
