The article is devoted to comparison of the existing and improved method of calculating the idle time of cars at technical stations. In the analysis result, the main factors influencing the finding time of the cars at the technical station were revealed: the level of technical equipment, organizational structure, technology and organization of operations at the station, the volumes of train and shunting operations, the degree of unevenness of the arrival of train cars and trains. The existing method of calculating the idle time of train cars at technical stations does not foresee the prediction of this indicator and an assessment of the impact of innovations of a technical, technological and organizational nature. The article suggests the main directions of improving of the method for calculating the idle time of train cars by allowing us to take into full consideration the technical equipment, the technology of operations and the unevenness of the arrival of train cars to the technical station.