Moscow and St Petersburg travel cards merged

The integrated Troika and Podorozhnik cards used in Moscow and St Petersburg will be available at Komsomolskaya metro station in Moscow and Ploshchad Vosstaniya in St Petersburg starting 2 June. Within a month, they will be sold at all other metro stations in the two cities. The integrated card will be especially useful to tourists and those who often make business trips.

“The introduction of modern methods to pay public transport fares is a priority for the St Petersburg authorities, who want transit around the city to be more convenient for residents and visitors alike. The Sapsan high-speed trains between Moscow and St Petersburg carried over 4.8 million passengers last year. The number of frequent travellers between the two cities is high. The integration of these two cards will make travel more convenient. I’m sure that residents and visitors in Moscow and St Petersburg will appreciate the advantages of the integrated card,” said St Petersburg Deputy Governor Igor Albin.

The cards are identical technically but will look slightly different, with their dominant feature depending on the city where the card is issued. The card’s technical features include two e-wallets for use in Moscow and St Petersburg and the possibility of adding tickets for Russian Railways’ Central Suburban Passenger Company and the Moscow-Tver Suburban Passenger Company.

“Moscow’s ticket system is being upgraded regularly. The Troika card was issued in 2013 and can now be used for all types of municipal transit and also for admission to city skating rinks, the Moscow Planetarium and the Tretyakov Gallery. The next step is the integration of the Troika and Podorozhnik cards. This is a big step forward for the two cities,” said Kirill Yankov, head of the Passengers Union, an interregional NGO to protect passengers’ rights.

Tickets for the routes served by the North-West Suburban Passenger Company will be added to the card in September. The Unified ticket that is accepted in Moscow can be added to the integrated card.

The multifunctional Troika card was integrated with the Strelka commuter travel card used in the Moscow Region in August 2016. Over 120,000 integrated cards have been sold since then.

“Close cooperation was initiated between the transit systems of Moscow and St Petersburg on orders from the cities’ governments. Integrated cards are usually very popular, as Troika/Strelka has shown. Unified cards make the use of the public transit system more convenient for passengers from different regions. Demand for the integrated Troika-Podorozhnik card will be especially high during the 2017 Confederations Cup and 2018 World Cup matches. The Strelka card could be subsequently added to the integrated system of transport tickets in Moscow and St Petersburg,” said Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow and Head of the Department for Transport and Road Infrastructure.

The Troika is the most popular travel card in Moscow and the world. To date, some 11.6 million Troika cards have been sold. Troika cards are used to pay for over 63 percent of trips in the metro and over 70 percent on surface transit.

The Troika card can also be used to buy tickets to the Tretyakov Gallery and the Lunarium Interactive Museum of the Moscow Planetarium, as well as to the Gorky Park and VDNKh skating rinks in the winter.