Moscow implements new ticketing system in Public Transport across city

Moscow, Russia (Urban Transport News): Modernization of Moscow transport’s ticketing system is planned to be completed by the end of 2021, says Deputy Mayor Maxim Liksutov.

“It became evident in 2018 that the old ticketing system did not meet today’s demands, and it was increasingly difficult to refine it, especially since not all the source codes belonged to the Moscow Government. We could not adjust it to launch flexible fare management, for example, to offer discounts within the Early Bird pilot project on lines 7 and 15. It also prevented us from moving towards abandoning remote activation of tickets at yellow terminals. Moreover, it did not let us integrate the ticketing systems of Metro and on-surface transport, commercial carriers and regional transport,” – explained Mr. Liksutov.

Deputy Mayor stated that “all these restrictions forced us to make a decision on creating a new system – and we held an open auction and signed a contract with the winner of the tender”.

“Now we are gradually implementing it, and we will finish at the end of 2021. And, even though we have not fully deployed the system, our solutions are the best in the world”, - said Mr. Liksutov

Advantages of the transport system

According to the Deputy Mayor, the jury of an international award in London recognized Moscow’s modern ticketing system as the best, noting the usability, convenient fare system, number of top-up modes, demand among citizens and potential for development.

“Here are some of our records: nowhere in the world do gates open as quickly as in Moscow Metro: you touch the Troika card on the reader and the gate opens in 0.03 seconds – quicker than you blink. We managed to do this due to the fact that the balance is stored on the card, not in the system, and due to constant work on speeding up the operation of cards and readers,” – he said.

Moreover, Moscow’s transport system itself selects optimal fares for passengers. “Even for such complex routes as, for example, bus-metro-MCD-1-MCC-MCD-2, you will get the most optimal fare and all the free transfer it provides,” – explained the Deputy Mayor.

Liksutov added that the city’s transport fare payment system supports bank cards of virtually all payment systems such as Visa, Mastercard and Mir, as well as smartphone payments including Huawei Pay, Mir Pay, AliPay, China UnionPay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, Apple Pay.

“Troika card can be topped up online. If you have an NFC-enabled Android phone – which is more than half of our passengers – you can top it up via mobile app and activate it without the yellow terminal – just touch the ticket to the phone. It is impossible for Apple phones: unfortunately, for now NFC is blocked by the producer, it works only for Apple apps, such as Wallet. But we have come up with a solution for iPhone users and we are actively working on it,” – said Mr. Liksutov.

Deputy Mayor Liksutov added that all types of tickets for Moscow’s transport are available in the Moscow metro app. “Our system allows you to pay not only for your trips but also for city’s services; and we have a loyalty program partnering with more than 6 thousand retail outlets that have 1.26 million users,” – concluded Liksutov.