Sienkevych explained why e-ticketing has not been introduced in Mykolaiv's transport in 10 years: «It's expensive»

The mayor of Mykolaiv explains why an electronic ticket has not been introduced. Photo: https://krokus.tv

The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, has explained why the city has not yet introduced an electronic ticket for public transport. He claims that the main reason is the high cost of implementing this project.

Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych said this during a press conference at the City Council on Wednesday, 30 July, according to NikVesti.

In particular, the mayor mentioned the experience of the city of Lviv, which, like Mykolaiv, has been implementing an electronic ticket for years. The city took out a loan from the European Investment Bank to implement it, and only in December 2023 did the city launch the «LeoCard» system.

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«Lviv seems to have used €10 million to implement this project. Check it out, I was not prepared for this question. It's really expensive. Because every trolleybus and bus needs to have an electronic reader where you press a QR code or a card of a Mykolaiv resident,» said Sienkevych.

It is also important to keep track of passengers for a transparent financial flow when introducing an e-ticket.

«The main issue in creating an e-ticket is to control the number of rides and move away from a cash cache for the driver. Because this is one of the corruption risks. A person who wants to buy a ticket could pay with a credit card, a Mykolaiv resident's card, or pensioners could use their ID cards instead of showing them to the driver».

According to Oleksandr Sienkevych, the city has experience of cooperation with individual companies, including Monobank, but such initiatives were not comprehensive.

«Some companies want to implement this by placing QR codes, but this is not a complete story. We had such a story with Monobank and electric transport. I want to do it in a complete way,» he added.

The first step towards the introduction of an electronic ticket in Mykolaiv, says the mayor, is the purchase of new transport with passenger flow counters.

«I hope we can finalise this project and offer it to our partners. For example, Taiwan. These are not dreams, as they say, we just need to work a little,» said the mayor.

How was the e-ticket implemented in Mykolaiv?

The issue of introducing e-tickets in public transport in Mykolaiv has been discussed for many years. It was first planned to introduce such a system in 2016. In February 2017, the President signed a law providing for the introduction of an e-ticket. This allows local governments to set up automated payment systems and completely abandon conventional tickets and cash payments.

In June of the same year, the then deputy mayor for infrastructure stated that he did not know when he would be able to implement the project, but claimed that he had been working on the issue since his appointment.

In May 2018, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych instructed city council officials to introduce the e-ticket as soon as possible. At that time, this project, according to the Law of Ukraine, had already been in operation for a year.

A month later, on 1 June 2018, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych and Volodymyr Yevtushenko, director of «Mykolaivelectrotrans», signed a memorandum with Visa to launch a pilot project to introduce an e-ticket.

The then head of the city council's transport department, Oleh Manushevych, promised to introduce the e-ticket system not only in municipal electric transport but also in private minibuses by the end of 2018. However, this did not happen by the end of the year.

In November 2020, Mykolaiv presented projects for the introduction of an e-ticket in public transport. However, as of July 2023, such a project has not yet been launched in Mykolaiv.

In March 2024, Dmytro Kanarskyi, Head of the Standardisation Department, explained that the lack of e-ticketing was due to the lack of budget funding for this initiative. He noted that the city authorities planned that private investors would invest in the development of the system and take a share of the profits, but none of these agreements were concluded.