Translated material
The lines are iron
Russian Railways is struggling to sell tickets online
Russian railways are launching a ticket sales system via the Internet these days. On the website http://ticket.rzd.ru, now, after registering, you can book travel documents, pay for them with a bank card, and then pick them up at any train station in the country where there is a regular ticket office. The new system will not get rid of standing in queues, but it will allow you to “catch” places on scarce routes. However, for now the system is working intermittently: on the very first day, according to a representative of Russian Railways, it broke down, but yesterday it seemed to have been restored by lunchtime. In those minutes when the new service was functioning, Vremya Novostey was able to try it out and find out its advantages and disadvantages.Russian Railways has long been trying to introduce a service for ordering tickets via the Internet. In the late 90s, her grandson company Transinfoset launched a similar service (on the website www.express-3.ru), but it was then closed, according to the official version, due to rampant speculators. A year and a half ago, the service was restored, and in addition to Transinfoset, the company Universal Financial Systems (www.ufs-online.ru) began to handle this. However, it cannot be said that the service has become widespread during this time. The fact is that Transinfoset takes a commission for each place in the amount of 80 rubles, plus a booking fee of 125.4 rubles established by the Federal Tariff Service. Thus, the overpayment compared to purchasing at the station is 205.4 rubles. from the spot. You can only buy a ticket at the Rizhsky Station ticket office within three days from the date of booking, but you can book tickets for trains departing at least two days later. “Universal Financial Systems” offer to pay for tickets online immediately using a bank card, but their markup ranges from 135 to 900 rubles. depending on the cost of the ticket and their number. You can pick up already paid tickets no later than an hour before the train departure in three places in Moscow, two in St. Petersburg and two more in Kazan, and you can also pay 150 rubles. order delivery.
Now that there are already first results of the service of selling tickets via the Internet by third-party companies, Russian Railways has decided to conquer a niche in this market itself. However, as you know, legally in Russia an electronic ticket is not a document. And if, say, in aviation, some companies already practice selling without issuing a ticket form, then on the railway, where there is no computer check-in when boarding a flight, this is basically impossible. Therefore, you cannot do without issuing a ticket on a form.
The advantages of the system introduced by Russian Railways are as follows: the passenger himself chooses the train, the type and number of the carriage, can even select seat numbers, then enters passenger data himself, receives a response from the system, pays with a bank card, then prints out the order or writes down its number and can pick up the ticket at any at the Russian Railways ticket office no later than an hour before departure. The main advantage is the cost of the new service, it is zero, however, you will have to pay the reservation fee established by the FTS - 125.4 rubles. from the spot. However, the main advantage of the new system is the absence of a fee in the system for purchasing a ticket not at the departure station. If you buy a ticket at the ticket office not at the departure station, you will have to pay an additional 100.8 rubles. regardless of the time remaining before departure. When purchasing on the Russian Railways website, only the fees valid for pre-sale are charged: if you purchase a ticket from nine days to 24 hours before departure - 50.4 rubles. from the place, less than 24 hours before departure - 62.7 rubles. from the spot. Thus, a very good way has emerged to buy, for example, return tickets from the south: it’s easier to catch good seats on the Internet yourself, and the overpayment will be only 24.6 rubles.
But the new system also has many shortcomings. First of all, they relate to communications with Ukraine. The fact is that almost all seats, with very few exceptions, for trains from Ukraine to Russia are “stored” in the computer center in Kyiv. But it does not always interact correctly with Russian railway electronic systems, and it does not have a ticket booking function. Therefore, you can buy tickets from Ukraine to Russia on the website, in contrast to the ticket office, only for this “small exception” - a few seats on the train, which are stored in Russian computer centers. So, it will be almost impossible to book tickets, for example, from Crimea using the new technology, including for Russian trains.
For the same reason, it is impossible to buy tickets on the Russian Railways website (at the ticket office) between Russian stations for passing Ukrainian trains (for example, on the Orel-Moscow, Bryansk-Moscow, Rostov-Adler, and so on). But it is precisely these Ukrainian trains that passengers mainly try to travel on, since their tickets are much cheaper, and the quality of the cars is no worse, and in many cases even better than Russian ones.
In addition, it is impossible to buy a ticket to Kaliningrad on the website, since when traveling there you need to issue a simplified travel document for transit through Lithuania.
Another drawback is the need to still go to the box office to buy a ticket and, most likely, stand in line. However, you can choose a time when there are not very many people (for example, at night at 24-hour train stations). The order form on the website is also very inconvenient: it is not immediately clear in what format to enter the date, passport number (or other documents), there is no saving of data in case of an input error or system error. However, Russian Railways promises to correct all the shortcomings (in cooperation with Ukraine - by the end of this year).