The leader of the railway transportation market, the company, talks about automation and new opportunities in the online booking segment. "UFS".
The steady growth of online channels allows us to talk about a large-scale transition of railway ticket offices to an online interface. Tourists are not ready to spend extra hours on organizing a trip, so they prefer booking tickets online. UFS experts have recorded an impressive change in the percentage of online bookings.
2017 showed a dynamic growth in sales of electronic railway tickets. The share of bookings made remotely reached 44.7%. This means that almost every second ticket purchased is electronic. That is why we try to actively respond to market needs, expand and improve functions for convenient online bookings.
For example, this year the service introduced innovations for passengers who buy tickets at the very last moment. Until this fall, spontaneously booking tickets was not so easy - the traveler had to have at least an hour to spare. Now it is possible to buy a ticket 15 minutes before the train's departure. This makes the service more convenient: you can organize your trip on the way to the station directly via your smartphone.
Those who, on the contrary, prefer to plan their trip in advance will find it convenient to use special tariff plans and get a pleasant discount. When simultaneously issuing a round-trip ticket on the Sapsan, a train formed by JSC FPC or in the carriages of Trans Class Service, the online module automatically gives a discount of 10 to 20% on the return ticket, depending on the carrier.
In addition, the service paid special attention to transferring options previously available only at ticket offices to the online space. Thus, the company introduced the ability to purchase a ticket without a Russian passport. Today, a traveler can fill out a ticket purchase form on the website, choosing any type of identity document. This can even be a USSR passport if the passenger has an insert confirming Russian citizenship. Other possible documents include: a foreign passport, a seaman's passport or a Russian military ID, a residence permit, an identity card of a stateless person, and even a certificate of loss of a passport. This option was introduced at Russian Railways ticket offices back in 2013, and now the UFS Electronic Ticket Office is the only service that allows you to buy a train ticket for all of the listed options online.
In addition to the discount on a return ticket, UFS has opened up other ways for users to save money, such as using special Russian Railways fares. Previously, to get a discount on a favorable offer, a traveler had to go to the station ticket office, which meant spending time on the road and in line. Now, all fares that give customers discounts on purchasing tickets are available online. And that's just a couple of clicks. Discounts are usually given to travelers for a special occasion. The UFS system offers the following fares: Holiday, Family, Wedding, DayR, which reduce the cost of a ticket by 30–50%.
By the way, you can get an additional discount without any special reason. The service offers the opportunity to accumulate points on the RZD Bonus card and use them to get premium tickets. To purchase a ticket using a road card, just enter its number in a special field when booking on all UFS resources.
If we talk about the corporate segment, at present, travel policy or business trip regulations are used by almost all companies of large international concerns. Since employees often have to go on business trips to other cities, management needs to control the costs of organizing them. For this purpose, UFS introduced a function to the Electronic Cash Register to limit the maximum cost of a ticket in accordance with the established travel policy of the company. Thus, if an employee selects a seat in a class of service not provided for by the travel policy — for example, in a luxury or SV carriage — a special notification will appear in the interface and remind them of the need to select another ticket. This means that if an employee violates the terms of purchasing a ticket, the accountant will receive a warning. The company sets limits on the booking amount and class of service independently when connecting to the UFS system.
In 2017, UFS also implemented the service of selling tickets for Aeroexpress trains running between Moscow and airports in the Online module. In the Electronic Ticket Office, Aeroexpress tickets have been issued by our agents since 2016. For them, this is, first of all, a good opportunity to increase their income in parallel with the sale of air tickets. We offer our clients several tariffs to choose from: the democratic Standard, Business Class and Round-trip.
Next year, the company plans to further develop the online sector. For example, UFS is preparing to launch sales of electronic tickets to Kaliningrad. At the moment, tickets for this route are only available at Russian Railways ticket offices — to obtain a travel document, the passenger must be present in person, as well as present the original document to obtain transit through Lithuania.
In addition, in 2018, UFS is going to introduce the option of booking tickets for 4 or more people at once in one order. This will allow organizing a trip for a whole group much faster, and the data entry form will not have to be opened several times. And for those traveling to cities where there is no direct railway connection, the company will create complex routes with transfers. At the same time, trains with convenient connections in time will be selected.
Source: trn-news.ru