Rada adopted a law allowing to introduce a single electronic ticket for public transportation, which will allow Ukrainians to refuse to pay the fare in cash, and transport workers — to control traffic. “Today,” found, when Ukrainians will be able to try out the e-ticket and how much it will cost.
PILOT — IN THE SPRING. According to the head of the Ministry of Infrastructure, the first e-tickets in Ukraine can appear this spring. The intention to launch them, said 17 cities. “The pilot projects we hope to launch sometime in the past two or three months in at least two cities, — said Vladimir Omelian. — Now to the introduction of e-ticket as ready as possible and Lviv Dnipro”. According to him, in the future, the e-ticket is introduced all over Ukraine. In practice, the major cities will be able to fully use the electronic system only after three years. Today, the e-ticket has already started to implement in the capital, in Vinnitsa and Ternopil — so far only in test mode. Dnepr will launch the system this year for metro, and until 2019 for other types of transport.
HOW IT WILL WORK. E-ticket in the form of a plastic card will be a single fare media across all modes of transport. No longer need to buy tickets, punch passes, or pay the fare in cash to the Comptroller. Only needed one time to buy a card and register. Payment will be held by reading data through the validator. By the way, the recipients will receive e-tickets for free, but the penalty for ticketless travel increased up to thirtyfold the cost of the ticket. However, a clear mechanism for the control of stowaways yet — in the Ministry of Infrastructure, for example, is planning to equip the transport turnstiles, but it doesn’t solve the problem entirely.
“The turnstiles in the subway, tram and bus is possible, but difficult to imagine in the bus. But even the validator is better than to transfer the money through all the passengers, as is done today — says transport expert Sergey Vovk. — This is the main advantage of e-ticket. He will refuse cash payments. How much money will be charged for travel on e-ticket, will solve local authorities. For example, you can set rates per trip in every mode of transportation and hour of travel.”
DO NOT ENTER EVERYWHERE. The key benefit of e-ticketing for the state the ability to better account for passengers, including the beneficiaries. Transporters will be able to see the volume of traffic and, if necessary, to optimize routes. Also, the authors of the law on e-ticket predict that it will help bring from the shadows a huge amount of money. However, some experts doubt that e-tickets will be able to enter in small towns. “In the regions, the initiative may fail, because private carriers and the owners of minibuses, as a rule, have a strong lobby in local councils”, — said the expert-transport Alexander Kava. — It is unprofitable to operate transparently, and they will prevent it”.
