It sounds like an exciting innovation – a single plastic card that can be used as a Kyiv resident ID and to ride the metro.
But it may just be too good to be true, in the case of the new card that in January will replace the familiar blue metro tokens with chestnut leaves that have been used by Kyiv’s metro system for decades.
The switch is already causing controversy, for good reason.
Neither the metro nor the city of Kyiv is willing to give out the details about the private firm chosen by the city for the upgrade after an uncompetitive tender in which the Kharkiv-based company, Alfapay Terminal Ltd., was the sole bidder.
There are many questions about what guarantees and security arrangements are attached to this deal involving significant amounts of public money. The city is not providing answers.
The city’s Department of Economy and Investment said that it could not provide information about metro-card operator Alfapay Terminal Ltd. without permission from company officials.
New metro fare
As of next year, passengers will have to buy a plastic or paper card to ride the metro. Moreover, the standard per-ride tariff will be replaced by four options.
The simplest one of them all will be the time-limited card, valid for 75 minutes after purchase in all types of public transport, except privately run minibuses.
The next tariff up is called “a tourist ticket.” The paper card will be valid for one, two or five days.
The third type of card is called “1 to 100.” It will be plastic and will allow purchases of up to 100 rides. The more rides purchased, the cheaper the trip.
The fourth type of card will be unlimited and personal, and designed especially for active metro users. To get it, travelers will have to come to an office in the metro station with an ID. Their picture will be taken and superimposed on the card, and the owner will be the only person able to use that card.
Paradoxically, less than three months before launching the new system, city officials claim they have no idea how much a metro ride will cost. Oleksandr Kubrakov, adviser to head of the Kyiv City Administration, told Stolytsia news program on Oct. 10 that “we don’t have calculations now. We are just talking about the concept.”
Mystery operator
The new metro fare is far from the only puzzling element in the upcoming metro overhaul, though. Another one is Alfapay Terminal.
The Kharkiv company will upgrade all entry terminals and payment systems in Kyiv’ s metro, but its officials refuse to take calls from journalists to explain the details. “Our managers don`t comment on it. If you have any questions, call the Kyiv city administration,” a company representative told Kyiv Post over the phone.
According to the conditions of the tender, which was conducted by the Kyiv city authorities between December 2012 and April 2013, the bidding company had to invest Hr 113 million into the metro upgrades. Kyiv city authorities said the company was the only bidder in the competition in the capital city.
In exchange, the city will pay 8.47 percent of proceeds from metro fees to the operator of the card terminals. In 2012, the Kyiv metro earned Hr 744.6 million from passenger traffic.
Even if one assumes that metro fares stay flat, Alfapay Terminal will be receiving about Hr 63 million annually in the next 10 years. But if the metro tariffs double from the current Hr 2 per ride, the company will recoup its investment in less than a year.
Alfapay Terminal has been operating electronic tickets in the Kharkiv metro since April.
Person behind company
Alfapay Terminal’s winning bid was presented to the Kyiv City State Administration in April by its co-owner Mykhailo Leonov. According to his profile on LinkedIn, a global professional networking site, he has been at the helm of this company since 2008.
This 26-year-old businessman from Kharkiv also works as an adviser to the chairman of Investment Union, a bank in Russia. He could not be reached for comment for this article.
Ruslan Kramarenko, deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration, said in May that the concept of giving a share of turnover for metro fares to a private company was proposed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
But Anton Usov, principal adviser for external affairs for EBRD in Ukraine, says the bank only connected Kyiv officials with specialists of other European municipalities in the electronic ticketing program and gave no further advice.
Kyiv Post freelance journalist Anna Babinets can be reached at [email protected]
