On October 23, 2025, the 174th meeting of the Joint Scientific Council of Russian Railways (RZD) was held, focusing on one of the most pressing issues for the RZD Holding — “Developing scientifically based proposals for new technological solutions aimed at improving the efficiency of multimodal freight transportation.”

In his opening remarks, Boris M. Lapidus, Chairman of the Joint Scientific Council, highlighted the key barriers to the development of multimodal transport and outlined the main trends in overcoming them. In the keynote report, Alexander S. Voroshnin, Acting Deputy Head of the RZD Corporate Transport Service Center, presented the ongoing work within RZD to develop multimodal freight transportation.

Representing the Institute for Transport Economics and Development (IEDT), Roman V. Martyshkin, Deputy Head of the Center for Macroeconomics and International Projects, delivered a report titled “Opportunities for Implementing Multimodal Technologies within the North–South International Transport Corridor (ITC) Considering Its Development Prospects.”

The report addressed the prerequisites for changes in the geographical structure of Russia’s exports, current and projected freight volumes, and the commodity composition of flows along the North–South ITC routes. It also covered the key components necessary for organizing multimodal transportation within the corridor and the infrastructure modernization measures along specific sections of the route that will help eliminate barriers to the development of multimodal transportation in the future.