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Please upload the hand book of traffic costing in indian railways

A railway service is most competitive when it delivers a better price and service mix to its customers than its competitors. Costs incurred in producing these services will dictate the lowest possible prices that will sustain the overall financial sustainability of the railway entity. Therefore, cost levels are critical, and a well-run railway will devote considerable attention to measuring and controlling costs.

Railway financial accounts will reveal total costs, which are essential to analyze overall financial viability. Benchmarking total costs against other similar railways will highlight areas for seeking cost efficiencies. However, most national railways provide a range of freight and passenger services. For freight customers, services might be tailored, for example, to bulk freight customers, container forwarders, and general freight. Passenger services might include inter-city, regional and suburban services. Each broad freight or passenger group will contain multiple market segments.

In a well-run railway, commercial managers need to know costs and financial performance for each market segment, disaggregated by route and other factors, sometimes even a specific train or freight customer. In a multi-product railway, these costs cannot be derived directly from general corporate accounts. They require application of costing techniques (see Costing in Section 2). But understanding rail business management and pricing requires a general understanding of the main costing concepts. Two of the concepts are common costs and joint costs, which can be either fixed or variable with regard to traffic levels.