Introducing a Brand-New Service for Customers

In the beginning of July, JSC Russian Railways and Pochta Rossii (The Russian National Post) combined forces to launch a brand-new service – delivering postal items and e-commerce shipments from the PRC to Russia. Since this delivery route has begun operation, 50,000 international postal items have been transported from Hunchun to Vladivostok.

The essence of the new international service is e-commerce shipments being delivered in postal cars from China to Russia. Previously, the Russian National Post mainly delivered shipments this large by air, but shipping in that method is more expensive and isn't always an option for freight senders. 

What makes the new technology unique is that a Russian post office car is for the first time exiting into the infrastructure of the PRC. The developed solution combines passenger and freight traffic within a single delivery. 

The challenge of this process is that for part of the trip the cars travel along with passenger traffic as part of the regular postal train and subsequently cross the border in a freight train, all the way to the destination station in the PRC. Delivery works in an analogous fashion in the reverse direction, from the PRC to the Russian Federation. 

In the words of Stanislav Gostev, deputy head of promotion and development for shipping products and services of the Company Transport Servicing Center of JSC Russian Railways, the new service must first and foremost be attractive to high-tech industry clients and companies operating in the e-commerce sector. Such representatives of small and medium-sized business will gain the opportunity to not only import the necessary goods from China but also export goods they manufacture.  

“Technology will allow New Year's gifts to be delivered during the peak season without having to put up with the kilometers-long lines at the border. The railroad channel indicates clear delivery times that car driving speeds do not match up with,” Stanislav Gostev commented. 
In particular, during the pilot delivery, the delivery time of international postal items from Hunchun to Vladivostok only took three days, including the time spent in customs and immigration control. 

In addition, the project is planned to be expanded to a larger scale. This will take place after the pilot shipping data is processed and the technology is improved on to accelerate and automate the processes.  Stanislav Gostev said in summary, “Together with the Russian National Post, we will strive to launch regular shippings along the Hunchun-Vladivostok and Hunchun-Novosibirsk routes, gradually expanding deliveries to the central part of Russia. The project’s objective is to achieve a daily shipping frequency providing the capacity for 2 million international postal items to be delivered to provide for the needs of our country’s residents.” 

Sergey Volkov