Railway Public Transport is linked to national economy necessities

Interview with Octavian Papa - Craiova SA Department Railway Public Transportation General Manager

 

 

Professional activity:

Graduated from the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute - the Transport Faculty, at the Railway Transportation Techniques section;

Positions occupied after graduation:

· stage engineer and station engineer at the CF Craiova station
· chief change station and station chief co-ordinator at the CF Craiova station
· deputy chief at the Craiova Traffic Regulator
· chief Technical Office at the Movement Department Craiova
· chief at the Commercial Division at the CF Craiova Department
· Exploitation Director at the CF Craiova Department
· Manager at the Zoning Passengers Agency Craiova until February 1st, 2000
· Craiova SA Department Railway Public Transportation General Manager

Rail Journal: What was the aim of the appearance of the short distance societies inside CFR Passengers?
Octavian Papa: Setting up the short distance societies inside CFR Passengers aimed to accomplish two things. First the insurance of quality for passengers railway transport because by dividing the area into smaller sections we could better monitor the activity and secondly we wanted to separate a little more strictly the types of passengers railway transportation. By reorganising we can monitor according to necessity and as a result we can offer better quality. We must not forget that the passengers' transportation is related to national economy necessities. The better part of the beneficiaries of short distance transport are commuters, pupils and students.
RJ: What is the action radius for the company you lead?
OP: The Craiova Short Distance Society is one of the biggest in the country and it operates on seven large counties: Dolj, Mehedinti, Gorj, Olt, Valcea, Arges and Teleorman. Geographically, our range is that of CFR SA CF Craiova Regional Department.
RJ: What are your current problems after this reorganisation and how will you solve them?
OP: The problems that ache right now are related to the anterior activity of the passenger railway transportation and the time passed since the reorganisation was much too short to be able to set things up. This kind of organisation is totally new for the Romanian railway system. On the international level it appeared not so long ago either, being applied only in a few countries as England or Japan. Each country has though a specific organisation type in the railway field, so it isn't so easy to take over a certain kind of organisation and to adapt it to the existent railway network and needs. Special efforts have been made in order to make this new type of organisation function, as it should. After insuring better modalities for the superior rang trains we managed to allocate some funds for the repairing of the stock materials, pretty short though. Part of them were insured by our unit, from our own incomes and transfers, and the other part being the SAAF funds for the repairing at one of the stock material, according to the Ministry of Transport decision. Unfortunately, SAAF ha snot allocated any funds for neither of the Short Distance Units. This caused some difficulties in traffic, sometimes being put in the position of renting locomotives from CFR Freight to be able to insure a normal traffic program. We need transport means of the auto-motors type being able this way to increase the traffic. A great advantage would be the reduced energy consume with low maintenance costs. In order to obtain these auto-motors funds are needed and the Ministry of Transport is the only institution that can decide the necessity of these charges.
RJ: What projects are you running now and must be finalised by the end of the year?
OP: The activity plans for this first period refers to the maintenance of the passengers' transportation at least at the level of 1999. Taking into account the fact that our PNB is made on the zero level (without any profit) it is obvious that our obligation is to maintain at a level that will not lead to an increase of the debts. Until now, we have managed pretty well, because the Craiova Short Distance unit has no important debts. Our goal is that by the end of the year to reduce our debts and to increase the incomes.
RJ: What could you tell us about the working conditions of your employees?
OP: I can tell you that they are no better than at the other railway units. Our main concern is to improve them as much as possible. We had some debates on this problem with the unions and we pointed out all these issues. There aren't too many because we received some funds to have them solved by the end of the year.
RJ: What will be new for the next year in your activity?
OP: We want to improve our quality service for our clients, the passengers. By our new organisation system we will be soon able to have a closer look at the problems, starting with the way our personnel behave with our clients and finishing with the selling program adoption of services. We hope that we will improve our collaboration with the infrastructure branch establishing some routes appropriate to the passengers' needs. We also try to adapt new managerial solutions in the market activity. But the really new facts will be the moment we will manage to obtain new stocking material.

Reporting Cristina Sava