Latvia, Railways, Technology, Transport

The next step Mobilly plans to make is a solution for purchasing monthly tickets to trains.

According to a survey conducted by Mobilly, purchase of a ticket at the ticket office takes 3-5 minutes. One third or 33% of respondents said that they are not doing anything during this time, while 20% a watching passers-by. At the same time, 33% of respondents would be glad to use this time to buy a newspaper or coffee.

Slavins said that an alternative is purchase of a ticket via Mobilly that requires just three "clicks". In Europe, 30% of tickets are purchased online, while in Latvia in 99% of cases train tickets are purchased at ticket offices, even though the Mobilly service is available in 97% of routes offered by Pasazieru Vilciens passenger train company. Slavins said however, that people’s interest is growing.

Pasazieru Vilciens representative Egons Alers said that the company signed the agreement with Mobilly in 2008, but then the service was complicated and there were not that many smart phones in use. He explained the steep growth in ticket sales via Mobilly now with the opportunity to purchase tickets to diesel trains from late last year.

Mobilly application offers to purchase train and intercity bus tickets, pay for car parking and other services.

In 2014 Mobilly posted EUR 794,521 in sales and earned EUR 171,917 in profit. The company belong to Normunds Bergs (40%), Janis Bergs (30%) and Uldis Paberzs (30%).