Infrastructure and logistics competitiveness
For many decades, Brazil is seen as a developing country, but the status of developed nation has always been an elusive goal, an almost unattainable promise future. Meanwhile, our country was positioned against the grain in several strategic sectors, such as transportation infrastructure. First, we opt for the priority rodoviarismo, leaving aside, arguably the most efficient railroad to transport large volumes of cargo and over long distances. And also do not take into account sufficiently, the integration of various modes, to form appropriate to the characteristics of the Brazilian territory logistic corridors.
In other continental nations, such as Canada, United States, Russia and China, the railways have a 40% to 60% in the transport matrix. In Brazil, the share of rail transport is still only 25%, and the highways move approximately 60% of all loads in the country. This serious distortion generates economic, environmental and social costs.
In the economic aspect, the data are extremely significant. The price of freight transportation is directly reflected in Cost Brazil, affecting the competitiveness of our products abroad and even domestically. According ILOS research institute, road transport has an average cost of around £ 216,000 per RTK (tons / kilometer useful), while the railroad that cost is $ 38,000, lower than the waterway, ships in £ 49,000 per RTK. The more extensive and well drawn for our network, integrating all modes, the lower the cost and greater efficiency.
An important detail in this scenario is the internalization of our agro-industrial production. The agricultural frontier and livestock is expanding to the Midwest and Northeast, while basic industry and consumer goods rise dramatically in the Northeast. This has meant that the average distance traveled by cargo in Brazil increased by 11% on the railways and 16% on highways between 2006 and 2012. Ie, we’re going further in search of cargo and transporting products in the country.
From an environmental standpoint, the railroads also take ample advantage. To get an idea, a single composition with a hundred wagons can replace 350 trucks. Less combustion engines in operation means less fuel consumption and lower emissions. According to IPEA – Institute of Applied Economic Research, the fuel consumption per tonne transported in a modern railroad amounts to only one fifth of consumption in an equally modern highway.
The ILOS Institute, in turn, proves that the freight trains emit 70% less carbon dioxide (CO2) and 66% less carbon monoxide (CO) than trucks; ie, the emission of these substances on highways is three times larger, compared to railways. In addition to pollute more, the burden on highways, especially in a scenario of economic growth, produces slow, holes and risk of accidents with injury to the truckers themselves. With investments being planned by utilities for rail networks over the next five years it will be possible to alleviate the drive on highways in over ten thousand trucks, reducing air pollution, noise pollution and congestion on the roads and in the cities.
In the social field, investments in transportation infrastructure are already bringing numerous benefits to the population. Grew 148.8% to offer direct and indirect jobs in the freight railways. In 2011, the industry began to employ 41,455 workers, more than double the total of 16,662 jobs recorded in 1997, not counting the growing demand of manpower in the national railway industry for the manufacture of wagons, locomotives, special equipment and hundreds of components. Moreover, the construction of the new meshes, greatly expanding railway operations in Brazil, will generate thousands of new jobs.
With the revitalization of the sector, which has been occurring since 1996, when it was deployed concessions model of freight railways, grows every year the need for skilled engineers, technicians, engineers and other professionals focused on the segment. To meet the demand for skilled labor due to market growth and emergence of new technologies, utilities invest heavily in professional training courses offering indoor and establishing partnerships with universities and technical schools, including SENAI – National Service of Industrial Learning.
The communities along the railways have also been benefited by various social responsibility dealers and the highest quality and safety of operations. In 15 years of railway concessions, the accident rate fell 81.2%, from 75.5 to 14.2 per million trens.km. This result is a consequence of massive investments in security, technology, training and maintenance campaigns. It is an index that should be aligned with international standards with construction of new municipal boundaries, fences and bridges, as well as solutions for passing level, directly benefiting about two million people in more than 13 municipalities.
Diversification of loads
All these economic, environmental and social factors indicate that rail cargo sector, after privatization, has contributed decisively to the Brazil overcome the distortion of their transport matrix and, thus, earn higher logistics competitiveness. Thanks to investments by the concessionaires, which already exceed the figure of £ 30 billion, the railroads reached new levels of performance in the last 15 years and have been consistently increasing its production. During this period, the railroad production grew 111.7% – twice the rate of the Brazilian GDP growth (54%) index.
This jump in production was accompanied by a more diversified cargo. Iron ore and coal are the most common loads in Brazilian railroads, representing 76.61% of the total volume transported, but the participation of other types of cargo has been increasing consistently. Between 1997 and 2011, the general cargo grew 76.2%. This past year, agribusiness accounted for approximately 11.51% of the movement and steel products registered 3.77% stake, while petroleum and alcohol reached a figure of 2.79%. Have the inputs for construction and cement represented approximately 1.41% of the ships rail transportation.
The transport of containerized cargo has increased more than 83 times since the privatization of the sector. If we consider only the year 2011, the transport of containers ¬ grew 23.7%, from 232,424 TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent Units) to 287,458 TEU. It is important to remember that this growth could be even higher if the current difficulties are solved for intermodal transport, as the lag of the tax system and the precarious ¬ rail access to ports and the importance of implementing the electronic waybill (CTe). Intensify intermodality is fundamental to better use of transport infrastructure, which will reduce the cost Brazil, equating the use of the advantages of each mode, even as energy consumption and environmental impacts.
Increasing energy efficiency is another very positive result of the new management of freight railways in Brazil. The locomotives are consuming less fuel and some are already powered by biodiesel. The higher efficiency reduces operating costs, providing economic sustainability to the business, both for the carrier and for clients, contrary to what occurred in the days of the defunct Federal Railways (RFFSA). The state model, as is known, generated operating losses of approximately £ 1 million per day, accumulating – between 1994 and 1997 – a loss of £ 2.2 billion.
The privatization of the rail network had a strong positive impact on public accounts from the first moment: between 1996 and 1998, the amounts determined in auctions stitches RFFSA totaled U.S. $ 1.76 billion. This was just the beginning of a process of exemption from public coffers, because since then, which only gave prejudice became profitable for all sectors involved, including the EU and the whole society.
Besides the strong investment in the revitalization of rail freight transportation in Brazil, the dealers have collected more than $ 15 billion into the public coffers. Of this amount, U.S. $ 9.57 billion refer to the payment of taxes and Contribution for Intervention in the Economic Domain (CIDE) on rail operations, while U.S. $ 5.52 billion correspond to collections of the payment of installments of concession and lease the mesh. In 2011 alone, the amount paid into the public coffers by utilities was £ 1.58 billion.
Looking to the future
After 15 years of the concession, the industry is revitalized and now operates with excellent levels of safety and efficiency. Now we need to look forward. Everyone knows that the country’s development in the coming decades depends primarily on massive investments in infrastructure, including the logistics of cargo transportation. Investments that need to happen right now, so that we may be able to fully meet the demands of competitiveness on the international scene.
Fortunately, the horizon became brighter with renewed government commitment towards deploying an integrated transport system, which has as its backbone the construction of railroads structuring, as the North-South (which allow the connection of all regions Brazilian), the East-West (ligand Barreiros Ilheus, Bahia), the Midwest (the city of Goiás Uruaçu to Vilhena, Rondônia), the expansion of the mesh in Santa Catarina (the far west coast of the State) , Transnordestina (linking the interior of several states three major ports in the Northeast) and Ferroanel of São Paulo (which will give flexibility to the flow of cargo to the Port of Santos) – plus a number of potential investments planned by utilities in their respective meshes, for years to come.
Facing the challenges of making the expansion and consolidate the modernization of the rail network remains indispensable partnership with the Federal Government sector companies, which depend on the economic sustainability of their operations. There are, unfortunately, some obstacles in the way of this option: First, the current leases expire within 15 years and, unless this period is extended, the huge investments they have no way to ensure a return to new capital that need to be applied; second, a barely disguised statist stance seems to ignore the successful international experiences, they recommend to rail an integrated model of operation up to each dealership. If unquestionable results revitalization of the railways in our country prove the correctness of the concession model, we must preserve legal certainty and thus investments.
The remaining term of the concession contracts for freight railways is not compatible with the induction of large long-term investments maturing, we now impose themselves as extremely necessary before the new demands of the country that point, the extension of the concession period would be beneficial for everyone. For the government, would allow the immediate realization of critical investments without compromising public resources. For utilities, provide a greater competitiveness and efficiency of current supply chains, enabling these investments.
Another problem is the most accurate and fair application of regulatory requirements. Rail transport is subject to strict operating standards, performance targets, integration procedures, minimum and maximum tariffs etc.. While other modes still work almost by default the regulatory body, is about the safety of vehicles, inappropriate use of fuels, the design of the routes, the conditions of work of professionals, precarious to the conservation of the pathways and ignorance of environmental standards.
Hence, the discussion of tariff paradigms or goals of transport volume is idle, while also not apply to all modes regulatory standard that prevails today only for one or two segments. The safety of the return on investment associated with fair treatment by the grantor of the contestants of the transport matrix is an important factor in improving the entire Brazilian intermodal system that only thus will be able to contribute substantially to the development of the country.
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