Prospects of using the urban railway for logistics support of urban areas

Abstract

Relevance of the conducted study is determined by the prospects of involving urban railway to provide logistical support of urban territorial units. Both urban light freight railways and passenger railways and their development perspectives were considered. Within the framework of the study, methods of expert evaluations, abstract logical method, methods of theoretical generalization and system analysis, statistical analysis, as well as clustering were used. The advantages of creating an urban light freight railway were identified, the opportunities of interaction with logistics centers and other modes of transport were determined, and examples of effective public-private partnerships in this process were analyzed. The factors determining the effectiveness of functioning of the logistic link “urban passenger transport – city train” were determined. Overall, the authors conclude that to implement the proposed projects, efforts should be intensified to unite the potential of a large number of companies, give them access to preferential credit lines, attracting foreign investment funds, and the freight and passenger railways can work on a joint network but separate from other rail connections.