What Does It Do?

CRCS^© takes into account the client's current freight rate, mileage, car type, car ownership, commodity, lading weight, tare weight, switching charges, and unit costs of each railroad making up the route. Data on average railroad unit costs varies by railroad and is updated each year. CRCS then calculates the railroad's revenue-to-variable cost ratio (freight rate being charged to the shipper divided by the railroad's variable cost for the movement).

CRCS^© uses the Uniform Rail Costing methodology that the former ICC used to evaluate requests for rail rate increases. This calculation method is still used at the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to analyze rate reasonableness litigation.

Why analyze railroad costs using CRCS?

Commonwealth Rail Costing System helps the user to:

• negotiate better freight rates by setting target rates based on cost.
• estimate freight rates without actually getting quotations.
• verify that a movement with rates at different minimum weights are consistent.
• benchmark yearly change in freight rate mark-up over cost.
• create mileage scales for use in contractual car return provisions.
• convert rates from full mileage to zero mileage.

Since deregulation, railroads have abandoned non-productive track, automated operations, and greatly improved productivity. As a result, average railroad costs have fallen every year for the last nine years. This can be seen in the industry's adjusted RCAF (rail cost adjustment factor). A movement that cost the railroad $100 in 1991 would only cost $69 today.

Although freight rates have also fallen, in many cases the rates charged to shippers have been reduced far less. A shipper may believe they are getting lower rates but if they had a better knowledge of the railroad's cost, they might be able to negotiate even better rates. That is why CRCS is so useful.

CRCS User Interface

CRCS can save and retrieve movement information to its own database. This makes it possible to update the rail. movements in CRCS © each year, taking into account new rates, routing patterns, and the most current railroad unit costs.

CRCS has three types of costing models that allow various degrees of precision. Quick Cost (8 input Parameters), Basic Cost (25 input parameters), Pro Cost (33 input parameters)

Report Capabilities

After running the costing model, a detail or summary report can be printed out. CRCS^© has the following reporting features:

• generates pre-formatted and custom reports.
• has individual movement or batch reporting capability.
• exports to Microsoft Excel. or Lotus 123 for further manipulation.
• creates projected annual savings reports.
• creates target rate reports.
• creates detail and summary reports of variable cost calculations.