Russian trains go online.

Russian Railways launched electronic payment system. Ever since, the tickets can be bought on-line.

January 14, passengers started travelling on Russian trains with an e-ticket. A passenger can buy a ticket and check in on-line through the official web site of Russian Railways – www.rzd.ru. The payment can be done with Visa, Visa Electron, MasterCard, Maestro; foreign banking cards should though support a 3D Secure/Secure Codе technology. The payment is done through Transkreditbank which is 74.9955% owned by Russian Railways.

New electronic system is valid only for travel tickets within Russia.

Still, a passenger can merely benefit from this innovation if he/she starts the trip from the initial point of the train route (like from most big cities only). Not all the trains of Russian Railways can be booked on-line. The web offer is valid only for two tariffs (an adult/a child). What is not less important, the on-line payment system of Transkreditbank seems to be troublesome sometimes as seen from a number of annoyed passengers on the web forum of Russian Railways.

Since December 1, 2009 there have been bought over 20,000 e-tickets. January 15, 2010 – there was found a first Murmansk citizen enjoying the e-ticket travelling from Murmansk to Apatity, informs tv21.ru.

Recently, this has not been the first electronic innovation of Russian Railways. Late in 2009, the company started to introduce free Wi-Fi hot spots in Moscow railway stations, yet later on considering to upgrade all big stations Russia-wide with free internet.

Russian Railways is a state-owned rail monopoly in Russia transporting over 1.3 billion passengers annually. It handles 39% of Russia’s cargo traffic. The investment programme 2010 makes up over 270 billion RUB.

Source: www.barentsnova.com