When welcoming participants at the opening ceremony, Georgy Poltavchenko, Governor of St. Petersburg, praised the idea of the event, because the issues of public transport development concerns almost all Russian citizens and the use of innovation is simply necessary. “There has been a huge leap in recent years in this area. It is important that such forums provide an opportunity to find new solutions that contribute to improving the quality of passenger service and technical development of the transport sector as a whole. The concepts which were ideas a year ago we can see today are now already being used in production”, he said.

Nikolai Asaul, Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, added that the venue of the forum was chosen not by chance since “St. Petersburg is the intellectual capital of our country, thus, introduction and implementation of the most advanced technologies in transport shall be carried out here. Not only the issues of saving time and passenger comfort, but also the tasks of improving environmental conditions and traffic safety, are solved due to innovations”.

The solemn part ended in a VIP tour attended by Georgy Poltavchenko, Governor of St. Petersburg, Nikolai Asaul, Deputy Minister of Transport, Igor Albin, Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg, Alexei Korabelnikov, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Finance Committee and Sergei Voronkov, CEO of ExpoForum International. The VIP delegation could see the Russian market premiere issued by Transport Systems PC, a low-floor three-section four-axle street car “Varyag” presented at the exhibition in real scale. The participants noted that the new generation street car is not only more comfortable than its predecessor, but also has the unique ability to return some electricity back to the network when braking.

ISBC brought another novelty. An ISBC representative said, “Our product, AIRTAG, is a plastic keychain with colour printing equipped with counter RFID label of ISO 14443 or ISO 15693 standard. The AIRTAG keychain can successfully replace plastic cards and be used in transport systems as a social card, a loyalty card, for access to secured areas, as well as an advertising carrier”.

St. Petersburg Metropoliten SUE made a presentation of a turnstile with radiation monitoring elements, a video surveillance system with the mobile terminal of a Control Service inspector and a simulation metro station transport safety control point at its booth.

EuroMobile demonstrated a bus of the future. A EuroMobile representative said, “Wireless communications technology, which will provide additional comfort and safety of passengers, distinguishes it from a usual bus. The multimedia navigation system will be an innovative solution. The displays show real-time information on the specific location of the bus, its speed, distance and travel time to the next stop, as well as the transfers to other available routes. In addition to the navigation, informative relevant content focused on the route passengers, such as the city weather, is displayed on the monitors. Actually, it is what the passengers are accustomed to seeing while travelling by plane”.