UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 21, 2017. A round table discussion on renovating passenger railcars used for commuter routes was held at the Federation Council’s meeting recently. Director-General of Siemens and Sinara Group’s joint venture Ural Locomotives Alexander Saltayev spoke at this meeting, Sinara Group’s PR Center reports.

The round table discussion participants pointed out that Russian Railways came up with an action plan to improve their passenger service in 2017-2019, with over RUR 175m allocated for the purpose.

‘The demand for rail commutes has been rising steadily; according to the Russian Public Opinion Research Center’s recent findings, passengers are generally satisfied with the quality of commuter service, with customer satisfaction index up from 72% to 76% in the course of one year. Interestingly, the index stands at as much as 83% at routes where only Lastochka trains get used and drops down to 59% at routes where no Lastochka trains are used at all,’ the Center says.

Alexander Saltayev, whose company Ural Locomotives makes the high-speed Lastochka trains for Russian Railways, presented the plant’s plans to develop new high-speed train types for the promising routes across the country.