Ukraine’s state railway network administrator, Ukrzaliznytsia, plans to develop its own mobile application to sell train tickets, its chief executive officer has announced.
CEO Wojciech Balczun said during an Aug. 10 meeting with representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce that Ukrzaliznytsia plans to launch an Android app to selling railway tickets by the end of 2016, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
“The mobile application for ticket sales on smartphones with the Android operating system will be launched later this year, and we will launch (the same app) for iOS devices a little later,” Balczun said.
He said Ukrzaliznytsia had created a special tech-related job position to help the company implement the latest information technologies in its daily operations.
“We decided to form the position of IT director,” Balczun said. According to Ukrzaliznytsia’s press service, Andriy Polishchuk currently occupies this position. There is no more detailed information available about his role, however.
“I set (Polishchuk) the goal of developing a strategy for the digitalization of Ukrzaliznytsia over the next three months,” Balczun said.
Balczun took over as CEO of Ukrzaliznytsia on May 24. Previously, he ran PKP Cargo, Poland’s largest railway freight carrier. During his five years in that job, from 2008 to 2013, PKP Cargo went from making a $26 million annual loss to an annual profit of more than $130 million (in 2011).
This story first appeared in the Kyiv Post, a syndication partner of Ukraine Digital News.
