Single Travel Tickets to Make Travel More Comfortable and Easier

Bratislava, February 20 (TASR) - Single travel tickets within the National Integrated Travel Ticket will bring greater comfort and easier travel in Slovakia, with passengers able to use them on trains, public city transport and suburban buses, representatives of a company called Asseco Central Europe (CE), the provider of software for its use, told a news conference on Thursday. "The application will help the state fulfil one main goal - to make travelling by public transport more attractive; so attractive that it will be easier to buy a ticket, really anywhere in Slovakia, from point A to point B, even if this requires a combination of different means of transport. It will simplify things so that people will buy one ticket at one price, and then make it more comfortable in that when they get on a bus, they won't have to think about how to get a ticket; they'll already have it in their mobile app," said Asseco CE's public sector division head Juraj Boledovic. The single travel ticket is intended to simplify fares and eliminate the need to deal with different types of tickets. The ability to buy tickets online will reduce the time needed to process fares, which will speed up the process of boarding vehicles. The system is also expected to provide price transparency, uniform fares and a fair distribution of revenues among carriers. The software solution for the single ticket will be a platform that will allow passengers to use one account for all modes of transport, including rail, public transport, buses and shared transport services. Asseco CE CEO Jozef Klein explained that the company will supply the system with five years of operation and support for €23.6 million (ex-VAT). The Transport Ministry informed the public about the launch of the single travel ticket project on Tuesday (February 18). In the first stage, the single travel ticket will focus on public transport providers, i.e. city and suburban bus transport and railways. Gradually, private carriers will also be involved in the system. ko/df