OREANDA-NEWS. April 17, 2008. According to Valery Shatayev, Managing Director of the Federal Passenger Directorate (FPD), Russian Railways plans to increase investment in the passenger division to 29,4 billion roubles this year, to 33,3 billion roubles in 2009 and to 38,9 billion roubles in 2010, up considerably from the 25 billion roubles invested in 2007, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

In 2007, the FPD acquired 901 new passenger coaches and is due to purchase another 1,051 in 2008.

The Company is investing 3,8 billion roubles in updating its depots and buying new equipment as part of its three programmes Upgrading Depots, Efficient Use of Resource and Train.

It has also allocated about 1 billion roubles to overhaul buildings, facilities and equipment and over 5,7 billion roubles to major coach repairs.

A satellite safety and communications monitoring system has already been installed on 158 passenger trains. This year, it is planned to equip about 420 trains with such systems.

842 new terminals were installed at ticket offices in 2007 as part of Russian Railways’ programme to increase the use of IT saw, as well as more than 700 ticket printing devices and 824 personal computers to create the Express Automated Control System.