The progressive globalisation of the market for transport creates a new challenge for the railways. The challenge is to provide for movement of freight between Europe and Asia by land over distances of over 10 000 km. On the key route from Asia to Europe an increase in traffic of around 23% is forecast for 2011 whilst within Asia, a growth of 7% is anticipated. Operation of regular freight services by rail over the landbridge between China and Europe therefore moves closer and closer so the question is therefore no longer whether but when.
Within the project to make the CIM and SMGS legally interoperable, the CIT (International Rail Transport Committee) and OSJD (Organisation for Cooperation of Railways) are accordingly working as fast as they can on the implementation of a comprehensive contractual framework to allow these new traffics to be moved simply in administrative terms but with complete legal certainty. The CIT and OSJD are coordinating their work closely with the UNECE in Geneva. The CIM consignment note defines uniform rules for the international rail freight transport contract, while the SMGS consignment note defines the Convention for the international rail freight traffic.
A CIT release informs that at the most recent meeting of the coordinators (in Baku on 21 June 2011), Russian Railways said that in 2010 twice as many CIM/SMGS consignment notes were used as in 2009. In total 36,226 CIM/SMGS consignment notes were used to destinations in the Russian Federation (for example 12,550 from the Czech Republic, 10,000 from Slovakia, some 6,000 from France and 3,000 from each of Germany and Hungary).
In the opposite direction, from the Russian Federation, some 35,000 CIM/SMGS consignment notes were used. This indicates balanced traffic flows. The greater part of this traffic likewise went to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A not insignificant number of CIM/SMGS consignment notes (some 10,000) were made out to Slovenia, emphasising the importance of the port of Koper.
CIT data show that the common CIM/SMGS consignment note is used for more than fifty traffic flows over four TEN corridors and so covers more than half the CIM/SMGS traffic, three quarters of this traffic consists of containers, at less than 5% single wagonload traffic plays a minor role. The use of the common CIM/SMGS consignment note leads to a saving of some forty minutes per wagon or eight to ten hours in the total transit time of a train. Discontinuing the transcription of CIM and SMGS consignment notes provides a saving of some EUR 40 per consignment. Further simplifications are expected from the establishment and consolidation of the customs union between the Russian Federation, Belarus and Kazakhstan because the common CIM/SMGS consignment note can serve as a customs transit document.
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