The decision to hold a passenger forum in Kazakhstan was taken at the 66th meeting of the Council for Rail Transport of the Commonwealth Member States in Moscow.

The participants in the forum were greeted by Arman Sultanov, Vice President for Development of JSC NC KTZ.

"This year our Company celebrated its 20th anniversary, today JSC NC KTZ is a national transport operator uniting services and infrastructure of all types of transport," A. Sultanov said and told about large-scale reforms in the railway industry, including passenger transportation.

According to him, the Company implemented  high-speed passenger traffic program within the framework of the implementation of the state program Nurly Zhol, which envisages the development of transport infrastructure on the ray principle and the integration of the regions of the country.

Currently, all major cities of Kazakhstan are connected by a network of 15 high-speed passenger routes, formed from passenger cars "Tulpar-Talgo" of Kazakhstan production, which made it possible to reduce the traveling time of trains by 1.5-2 times.

Since 2016, work has begun to replace the existing standard trains with new comfortable rail cars "Tulpar-Talgo" with a wide body. Until 2022, it is planned to replace 21 members.

As part of the Digital Rail project, much work is being done to introduce new digital services for passengers. On the eve of the international exhibition EXPO-2017, the modern railway station "Nurly Zhol" was put into operation.

Today, the national carrier serves over 120 routes, annually more than 20 million passengers are transported. Over the first half of the year, over 10 million passengers were transported.

This year new international route "Almaty-Tashkent" was launched. For the period of the EXPO, 14 additional routes have been opened, of which two international trains: Samarkand-Astana-Nurly Zhol and Dushanbe-Astana-Nurly Zhol.

For the convenience of passengers, there are more than 10 Internet portals for the sale of electronic tickets, mobile applications that allow you to buy a train ticket in a matter of minutes. Thus, about 80-90% of tickets are made in electronic-digital form, the service for selling travel documents through the network of air ticket offices "Amadeus" is actively used.

The national carrier takes all measures to attract passenger traffic, improve the service and comfort of passengers.

Vice President for Development of JSC NC KTZ noted the need to "develop a joint strategy for the development of international passenger transportation, taking into account the efficiency of routes, the competitiveness of tariffs, the introduction of new technologies in the organization of transport" and expressed confidence in the fruitfulness of discussing issues and developing modern approaches in attracting passenger traffic.