Use of activity-based costing approach for cost management in a railway transport enterprise

Abstract

This research outlines a research study wherein an implementation of the activity-based costing (ABC) approach for cost management in a railway transport enterprise is addressed. ABC is an efficient technique for enhancing the quality of provided services and process complexity of certain railway companies, executing its activities at a regional or international scale. It is one of the new costing approaches that eliminate the inaccuracies and deficiencies of the traditional costing system. Compared to other costing techniques, considerable change lies especially in the way of assigning indirect cost units to activities based on actual causations, and subsequently, assigning activities to the very cost items by the intensity of their consumption. Furthermore, this approach allows decision-makers to identify specific cost item in terms of determining ways of how they can be managed. The main objective of this work is to elaborate a particular study with a draft application of the ABC method encompassing a description of procedure steps, along with relevant quantifications, as well as summarising the results obtained.