Think Railways

Russian Railways are looking into implementing a single high-speed train/airplane ticket system, for travelers on Moscow-Kazan route, stated RZD’s First Vice-President Alexander Misharin.

“Due to the fact that we designed 4  service classes ( low-cost, economy, business and first class), a broad tariff policy will be applied, which will allow a weekend trip, family trip, 20-day or monthly travel, student travel ” – he noted. The minimum ticket price will be closer to the cost of second-class carriage. The tariff scheme is scheduled to be ready for 2015. 

“The prospect of a single integrated ticket in Russia is real. Currently in Russia, the single ticket system exists, for example “Aeroexpress” offers a range of tariffs that allow passengers to travel further to the urban public transport network.” said Leo Ruzavin,  Institute of Natural Monopolies (IPEM).

The new system requests a series of technical improvements, the procedure for changing tranport modes has to be convenient and comfortable for the passenger, implying the development of multimodal hubs, a coordination of operators schedules. As well, the problem of subsidies remains to be solved; allocating subsidies by a specific route, rather than by transport mode could be taken into consideration. 

Source* gudok.com; photo RZD