Passengers of Ukrainian railways will have to present their passport or another personal identification document to travel by train.
According to the government decision expected
to come into force in April, passengers will have to present passports while
buying train tickets. For tickets bought online passengers will need to indicate their
names while making an order and then present their passports before boarding
the train. Aside from passports, passengers can also present driver’s licenses, foreign
passports and refugee id’s.
The move has been highly criticized, as it violates the constitutional right of freedom of
movement. A similar decision was first implemented in 2004, but canceled in 2007 by
the government, headed by then Prime Minister and now President Viktor
Yanukovych. Then it was considered inefficient and argued that it would create unnecessary troubles for passengers.
The reason of bringing back the old practice is to prevent ticket speculations, when railways tickets are sold under the desk. The rule is also
supposed to help preventing terrorist attacks, reads the official government’s
ruling on March 6.
Serhiy Vovk, head of Center of Transport
strategies, a Kyiv-based think tank, says such measure initiated by the
government hardly makes any sense. There are other, “more humane” ways to
tackle ticket scalping, he explains. “If we take the practice of developed
countries, for example European, then this measure is a complete nonsense. The
railways should be more concerned about increasing the sale of tickets on the
internet and in ticket machines, to reduce the role of the cash desks,
instead,” says Vovk.
Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can
be reached at tuchynska@kyivpost.com
