At what stage is the work on the UST Inc. project for the Leningrad region?

Earlier, Unitsky String Technologies Inc. reported, that the Leningrad Region authorities were interested in using uST transport and infrastructure complexes. At what stage is the development of the project today and when can it be launched? These and other questions were answered by Evgeny Petrov, the Deputy General Director of UST Inc. in an interview with RZD-Partner.

"We’ve handed over a package of documents, including financial and economic calculations, to the regional government. The project parameters were calculated on the basis of data received from the relevant committees of the region. This is only a primary study, without a deep dive into the specifics of the passenger traffic distribution, the need to transfer networks, conducting geodetic surveys and other things that we usually analyze as part of the feasibility study creation. The Governor and his team got acquainted with the documents and confirmed their interest in the transport and infrastructure complex implementation. However, at this stage the regional authorities are not ready to act as a concedent, and this is totally natural. First, it is necessary to verify the presented calculations within the framework of a detailed feasibility study. This is an expensive and time-consuming work, which we will begin when we determine the areas of responsibility and sources of funding," – said Evgeny Petrov.

According to the Deputy General Director of UST Inc., the results already obtained indicate the high profitability of the transport complex based on uST solutions on this route. According to the company, with a ticket price comparable to the cost of travel in the subway, the project will be profitable, even if passenger traffic turns out to be 40% less than the one that was included in the calculation models.