O-City by BPC: Uzbekistan Tashkent Q&A

With a population of more than 2.5 million, Tashkent is the fourth most populous city in the CIS. It is also a major hub in Uzbekistan, which goes through transport digital transformation. We have taken an interview with Timur Azadov, General Director of ATTO, a transport operator, established with participation of local partners, that teamed up with O-CITY by BPC, a technological provider of automated fare collection solution.
The project is steam rolling now and we have been interested if ATTO could uncover details for us. Here is what Timur Azadov replied to our questions:

Uzbekistan is entering into an ambitious digital transformation program. Can you tell us more about the country and what are the initiatives being undertaken by the government?

The nationwide digitalisation of public transport in Uzbekistan has started in 2019, following the 2019 resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan to automate public transport fare collection.

In addition, Uzbekistan is gradually developing its digital literacy, which becomes a requirement for people’s work and social life. Following the initiatives of development from the President of Uzbekistan, the 3rd decree stated to ensure the effective use of technology and the internet of the population. Following this, UZCARD was appointed to lead this nationwide project of digitalisation of payments in public transportation. During the research and evaluation process, it was decided to opt for a cutting edge open-loop, account-based ticketing system, and UZCARD created (ATTO) “Avtomatlashtirilgan Transport To’lov Tizimi Operatori” which was established with the participation of all local partners, including banks and regulators, while O-CITY by BPC would be the technology powering the automated fare collection solution, leveraging its account-based ticketing technology.

Can you describe the current public transport ecosystem? How many types of transport are there? Are there still a lot of cash-based operations?

According to the Ministry of Transport, there are 209 500 km of roads in Uzbekistan as of 2021. With a population of more than 33mln in Uzbekistan and almost 3 million in Tashkent, it is a huge business hub connecting Asia to Europe. The main public transport in the city are buses, trams, trolleys, and the metro, including light railways that creates affordable transportation. After the initial start of the project, the transport system started to modernise and lots of people enrolled willingly to use the contactless technology on public transport. On the other hand, the Worldbank, seeing the progress in Uzbekistan, has decided to help with the innovation system.

As for public transport, according to the poll Kun.Uz, more than 77% of the population is using public transport, so it was important for us to modernise the customer experience for public transport fare collection services and improve it to the welfare of our citizens.

How did this partnership with O-CITY originate?

When starting the project with ATTO, we were looking for the right technological partner, who would bring not only a modern automated fare collection platform, but would also be backed by powerful, and scalable technology. O-CITY was the right choice for the project.
O-CITY has installed the system on-premise, provided us with insightful training, and empowered ATTO to use the system in the most efficient way. The strong point is the available set of APIs that allowed our team to integrate our own products into the ecosystem we built. The O-CITY architecture allowed us also to introduce a multi-functional mobile application, which we introduced as a convenient tool for the commuters to control their journeys in public transport.

How are you bringing new experiences for travellers?

With O-CITY’s technology, we were able to provide modern public transport throughout Tashkent on the first stage with plans to scale to all the cities in the country as per the roadmap. This will also enable us to introduce a multi-modal traveling environment, connecting them all into one unified ecosystem with various transport modes, such as: buses, metro and LRT.

More than 1100 buses and all 43 metro stations were upgraded with static and mobile validators capable of accepting NFC devices, bank cards ,QR-codes and closed loop ATTO cards.

What does success mean to you when it comes to changing the way we pay in public transport?

As soon as the project started, lots of people started to enroll in the digital system, using different tools to pay for their journeys. We have received a lot of positive feedback from the population on this modernisation and that has been the most rewarding result.

As for the numbers, we have calculated through the O-CITY system to have 7 000 000 journey transactions per month, purely cashless on all transport modes or about 100 000 per day in metros and 150 000 per day on ground transport. The full migration from cash based to non cash has not been finalised yet – so this figure will continue to grow.

How are users responding to date? Any key learnings to share with our audience?

The Ministry of Transport, ATTO and UZCARD have full transparency over public transport usage and transactions, raising the level of trust and collaboration.

With the introduction of open-loop automated fare collection, we were able to create a multi-modal digital transport network that allowed consumers to pay with various media popular methods in Uzbekistan. You can come from any part of Uzbekistan to Tashkent and still have access to the public transport by QR-code from your phone, Visa branded card, Mastercard card, Mir card, CUP, UZCARD, HUMO card, or purchase a local ATTO card and use this one.

Digital transparency also helps to deliver an anti-fraud agenda, limiting the losses suffered with cash-based transactions in public transport. The introduction of mobile applications and contactless payment methods help to ensure trust in commuters, showing that traveling is safe and secure. It is especially crucial during the pandemic, when everyone wants to have limited human interaction or contact with any surface, including coins, and bus tickets.

Backed by the O-CITY technology, the application allows passengers to keep track of their history of journeys, and tariffs within a network of partners using apps they already have.

What are your future plans?

Uzbekistan and us share similar expansion plans. Responding to the immediate success of this initiative, we will continue working with O-CITY as per plan by expanding the solution to a nationwide programme, creating one interconnected digital society.