Modernization
Until 2004 Georgian Railways had been significantly affected by corruption. On the one hand, modernization and maintenance of the railway was neglected; for example, out of 11,000 rail cars, only 7,000 were in operation. On the other hand the football stadium of Lokomotiv Tbilisi, the team of Georgian Railways, had one of the most modern sports sites in the country. General manager Akaki Tschchaidse was arrested in 2004 and spent several months in custody, before he redeemed himself for 3 million US dollars.
The railway company was restructured in the same year, and the general manager became subordinate to a supervisory board. From June 2004 until October 2005 David Onoprishvili, a former finance minister and a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, was general manager. He reformed management and assigned the American consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton to conduct an organizational appraisal.
As part of a modernization program, 2,445 employees were laid off, while wages for remaining employees were increased by about 17 percent. Tariffs for goods (freight) transport were lowered, while modernized, air-conditioned rail cars and express services were launched for passengers. A program of new and renovated station buildings commenced in 2006. The station building of the Tbilisi central station, excluding the rail infrastructure, was reconstructed and officially inaugurated in May 2010. The stations Makhinjauri (a suburb of Batumi) and Kobuleti also received new station buildings.
The direct railway line through the center of Tbilisi will be replaced by a bypass north of Tbilisi in the coming years. The central station will be closed to passengers, and the existing infrastructure will be dismantled. Instead of a central station, two Tbilisi stations, the Didube station in the northwest part of the city, and the Navtlugi (Samgori) station in the east, will become stub-end stations served only by passenger trains. Because of this, through passenger service and direct passenger transfers will not be possible in the future.
However, instead of the expected reduction of environmental and traffic problems, the reductions are expected to cause more traffic problems, due to the fact that the surface (bus and trolleybus) and underground (Metro) public transport system of Tbilisi is oriented toward the central station. As a result, Western European transportation specialists and railway companies strongly disagree with the solutions recommended by Booz Allen.
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