Transport Collapse of 1990-1991 and a Shift in the Structure of Russian Cargo Transportation

In the 1990s, a shift occurred in the structure of Russian freight transportation that wasn`t recorded by official statistics. Despite the advantage of technical and economic characteristics of rail transport for long-distance freight transportation, an increasing number of shippers use automobiles. This cannot be explained through price`s dynamics: if in the period 1992-1995 railway tariffs really did significantly deviate from automobile transport rates, then already in 1996-2000 the rate of tariff growth became lower than the rates. The Ministry of Railways even reduced tariffs, despite general inflation in 1998. To test the hypothesis about the presence of a structural shift in the work, an additional calculation of the «shadow» freight turnover of automobile transport was carried out. It is based on a simple hypothesis about a linear functional relationship between real GDP and freight turnover. Moreover, this conclusion about the shift in transportation in favor of road transport is confirmed by the change in rolling stock: while the number of wagons decreased, the number of trucks increased. The shift was largely due to the collapse of the USSR railways in 1990-1991, when freight cars stood on the roadside for months, which was associated with a general management crisis. At that time, Soviet cities were experiencing a shortage of food and fuel, but not only were cars with factory components idle, but also with grain, other food, and coal. However, the idea that the supply crisis was man-made was not confirmed: after the collapse of the USSR, the ban on the activities of the CPSU, and the coming to power of a new government in 1992, the situation with unloading railway cars improved quite slowly.