OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2014. Vladimir Yakunin, President of Russian Railways, took part in the "Summit of Train Leaders" in 2014 held at the InnoTrans international exhibition held in the German capital Berlin.

The gathered heads of rail companies and transportation agencies from around the world usually discuss the global challenges and trends in rail transport.

The main themes at this year's summit were increasing mobility, developing information services and client applications and mutually integrating systems.

Alexander Dobrindt, Germany's Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, noted in his welcoming speech that growing prosperity and mobility are inextricably linked with the flow of goods, passengers and information. The economic dynamism of any particular region depends on the increase of these flows. Rail transport accounts for a significant share of traffic today and therefore has a major impact on these flows and processes.

According to Rudiger Grube, Chairman of the Board at Deutsche Bahn AG, it is true that today the global economy has moved into the digital era.

The summit's participants agreed that due to increasing mobility and transportation and the improving performance of rolling stock, together with the reduced costs of maintain the infrastructure of traditional ticket sales channels, it is possible to lower the cost of travel and thus further increase the frequency of train journeys.

"Our goal is customer satisfaction, so we are focusing on improving customer focus," said Vladimir Yakunin.

According to Yakunin, the interest in purchasing electronic tickets through the Internet is growing every year, as evidenced by an increase in sales by 1.5-2 times. Nowadays, every fourth ticket purchased by passengers is electronic.

Russia's railway system began selling electronic tickets in 2007. Today, passengers can purchase tickets through the web portal of Russian Railways and the Company's mobile app.

"We need to develop services that will meet the needs of our customers so that they enjoy buying tickets using a mobile phone," said Vladimir Yakunin.

According to Rudiger Grube, the first mobile app for the sale of train tickets was in 2009, but now in China alone, there are 1.5 million such apps. In Germany, 30% of all train tickets are sold through the Internet, while at 40% the figure is even higher in the high-speed train segment.

The participants in the summit also touched on the mutual integration of information systems used by different modes of transport and railways all over the world in order to improve the transparency and user friendliness of their services.

"As part of the work of the International Union of Railways, we are developing technologies and standards that can be mutually integrated in various countries and information systems," said Vladimir Yakunin.