Moscow’s transport card Troika to become virtually everything

Moscow’s transport smart card Troika to be used with any medium carrier, says Maxim Liksutov Moscow Deputy Mayor for transport.

Moscow transport authorities say passengers of Moscow’s transport will be able to use Troika card on any medium including their office ID cards or fitness bracelet by the end of 2021. Moscow Metro plans to reduce the time needed to process the card at turnstiles by 20-30%, so that it will take 0.02 seconds — now it is 0.03 seconds.

Mr. Liksutov outlined that bankcard payments in Moscow’s transport system will have a cumulative effect. «We plan to start testing it this year. For example, if you use single trip fares day by day and you have made a month’s worth of rides, you will use transport free of charge for the rest of the month, as if you had bought a monthly pass in advance. As for Troika, it already offers optimal single trip fares as well as unlimited pass, for example, for a month», explained the Deputy Mayor.

The Troika smart card was introduced in 2013 as the first step in modernizing the ticketing system of Moscow’s urban transport. Today, it provides a wide range of fares, offers a number online services and gives access to the Gorod loyalty programme. In 2020, Moscow announced its expansion to other Russian regions, starting with Tula that adopted the card in November. As of January, more than 170 thousand passengers outside of Moscow have already used the new card.