EVALUATION OF THE OPERATION OF RAIL TRANSPORT IN THE CONTEXT OF CYCLICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ECONOMY

Abstract

The economic and productionactivity of the railway industry is influenced by the cycle of economic development when economic and financial crises create special conditions for the main activity of railway transport -carrying out the transportation process. The conditions of moderneconomic dynamics must be perceived as a correlation of the route of development of the railway industry, with the obligatory consideration of economic crises in the mechanism of activity. The resulting trend of the economic cycle is the dynamics of the gross domestic product and indicative of the efficiency of the reproduction process –the volume of capital investments and freight transportation. Railway transport of Ukraine, as a key component of the country's transport sector, which provides transport services in thesphereof production, circulation, and social sphere, performs a system-forming function in the cyclical mechanism and experiences the maximum load in the process of fluctuations, which is illustrated by the statistics of freight transportation and the dynamics of the gross domestic product during two major economic crises of 2008-2009 and 2019-2020. With a decrease in indicative indicators, the railway industry loses income from the main activity and the interest of investors. A new economic upswing depends on when the demand for the industry's products –for the transportation of goods and passengers -will increase. Taking into account the fact that the economic development cycle is an objective reality, and its dynamics are a reflection of the general dynamicsof the development of modern society under the influence of scientific and technological progress, the economic entity needs to take steps to anticipate, in the phase of elevation, so that with minimal losses meet and pass the crisisphase. Regarding the railway industry, these are steps to improve the investment policy with clearly defined priorities of investment activities, sources of financing investment programs taking into account specific features, improving the policy of fixedcapital management, forming countermeasures to investment risks, with their reorientation to the market situation, market monitoring and data forecast regarding the emergence of crisis phenomena, to promptly respond to economic changes through the mechanism of investment control, the use of world-class universal management methods in management. The adaptation of the work of railway transport to the conditions of dynamic economic cycles takes place against the background of changes in the system of economic values and requires the industry to master innovative technologies aimed at increasing the efficiency of work and expanding opportunities in new markets.