In Russia the project of informatization of "the archaic market" of bus transportations starts

Long-distance transportations

The size of the market of passenger traffic by land transport, by different estimates, is from 60 to 300 billion rubles a year. Billions of transactions it is annually made upon purchase of tickets. Through the whole country more than 9 thousand bus carriers work.

At the same time the number of the automated bus stations is estimated no more than at 15% of total number. There is no public primary information on routes and rates. It is possible to purchase the ticket far off (for example, on the Internet) only in rare instances, and to purchase the return and connection (with change) tickets impracticablly.

For comparison, the size of the market of air tickets in 2014, by Ozon.travel estimates, was about 230 billion rubles. About 20% of tickets are sold online (both via the websites of airlines, and through different online services).

The first step on the way to improvement of the booking market of bus transportations should become the single platform based on registers of interregional routes from which sellers of services could scoop necessary information, the deputy director of department of state policy in the field of motor and city passenger transport of Ministry of Transport Alla Sologubova at the forum "Internet economy" which took place at the end of December, 2015 said.

Besides, she added, Ministry of Transport "is going to take steps" in the direction of that the carrier undertook a duty to sell services online (for this purpose it will be required to make changes to accepted by summer of 2015 of 220^[1]).

The Russian officials thought of regulation and informatization of bus transportations

"The national center of informatization" (along with IIDF participate in the working group of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and Ministry of Transport on study of the project) also consider that first of all centralization is necessary: accumulation in one place of information on all available long-distance routes and their schedule; centralized accounting of the available park of the vehicles servicing routes, their capacity, points of landing and a stop.

Besides, process automation of approval of opening, change and canceling of routes is necessary. Now this process takes a lot of time, is not up to the end transparent, and to carrier which wants to open a new route, simply there is no place to take information for market research.

All listed actions, are sure of NCI, will provide premises for:

• Emergence of the systems of relevant and reliable informing citizens
• Creations of aggregators in bus transportations and market developments of the systems of remote armoring of places and sale of tickets
• Development of a transport network of bus transportations

The market of long-distance transportations quite archaic, tells TAdviser Evgeny Borisov, the development director of Internet Initiatives Development Fund therefore it is necessary to create regulatory mechanisms, priority for its development.

First of all, it is about creation of the technology standard for transport booking solutions. The uniform effective standard for bus tickets through the whole country is necessary for Russia. The regulator needs also the solution for proper control of sale and distribution of tickets. Direct implementation among all participants of the market of the uniform standard of e-tickets will become one of final steps.

In parallel with these processes, according to Borisov, it is necessary to develop new mechanisms of tariffing which would be not only are acceptable for stations, but also allowed carriers to develop services and to improve quality of the rendered services.

Potential investment volume, necessary for implementation of the similar project (taking into account development of new solutions and purchases of IT infrastructure for carriers), the IIDF estimates at 5 billion rubles. Only automation of stations will manage more than 1 billion rubles, he considers.

Startups, and the large companies can become players of the market both.

Startups first of all can occupy a niche of sales agents of tickets, providing additional services for passengers (the choice of a seat, viewing neighbors in a trip, etc.) and also developing more difficult solutions for stations and carriers. Big corporations are traditionally more focused on complete platform solutions, plus they will be interested in acquisition of startups at later stages when projects are able successfully to adjust, for example, sale of tickets in one or several regions or to implement the B2B-solutions for several significant clients, considers Borisov.

City transportations

In the large cities electronic boards at stops appear, mobile applications with the schedule and tracking of buses in a real mode are created, new booking solutions are implemented. Electronic travel cards in some cities it is possible to fill up far off, note in NCI.

But as soon as the region or municipality implements the booking solution, he right there becomes his hostage. In order that the solution really earned, the customer should spend many resources (both financial, and administrative), to connect to the booking solution of all carriers, to organize the system of sales of tickets, to release a necessary normativka, etc. And as a result the supplier of the solution has a monopoly position and an opportunity to dictate the terms, for example, in the cost of service of this solution, Alexander Yaroshko, the deputy director general of NCI says.

It becomes extremely difficult replace the booking solution in case of problems with the supplier or the operator. It can lead both to financial, and to reputation losses.

So, for example, as a result of break in relations and change of the booking solution most likely there will be a failure in service of already issued recharge cards. Issues of generation of key information for cards and the customer assigns to the organization of processes of diversification and rotation of keys to the operator or the producer of the booking solution, the expert is sure.

There are difficulties and with cross-sellings in the cities. Solutions which are used by the regional authorities are proprietary and are not compatible among themselves. Therefore bus tickets cannot be used for payment of lease of the bicycle or for visit of a public toilet if there the same booking solution is not implemented.

The NCI considers that the market of booking solutions for city transport needs to be standardized:

• Introduce requirements to structure of storage and rules of data access on the card
• Introduce requirements to the distribution of key information, diversification and rotation of keys
• Transfer the instruments of control of key information which are absent now to regulator hands
• Introduce requirements to the used radio frequencies and settings of readers
• Describe an order and rules of interaction of booking solutions
• Impose requirements to support of the relevant protocols and existence of program interfaces in booking solutions

As a result we will have an opportunity of fast and easy integration of different booking solutions with each other, and as a result regions and municipalities will be able to use different booking solutions for different carriers (on condition of creation of the system of clearing over them) that will increase the competition between producers and will contribute to more active market development of booking solutions, Yaroshko considers.

Discussion of a subject of regulation and informatization of passenger traffic took place in the working group of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and Ministry of Transport for all 2015, having crowned reports within the forum "Internet economy" at which among others the President of Russia Vladimir Putin made a speech. Now interlocutors of TAdviser expect official order from Presidential Administration which will allow the project to start fully.

Notes