The Mayor's Office of Bishkek City has launched a tender for the development of an automated fare collection system on public transport in the city, to be undertaken on a Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT) basis.

The new fare collection system shall be based on smartcards and allow to identify concessionary passengers like retired people and pupils, provide more transparency in payments, increase the revenues and simplify the use of public transport in Bishkek.

The selected private partner will deliver:

• 300,000 to 600,000 smartcards
• 400 fixed mounted validators on mid-sized buses and trolley-buses and 3,000 mobile/handheld validators on small buses
• A small number of ticket vending machines
• One back-office accounting and handling system, capable of processing several independent clients
• 300 to 500 personally operated kiosks or sales points for distribution and topping up of smartcards
• Service centres located in each district of the city

This is the first of a three-stage tender process and consists of pre-qualification of interested parties. The submission deadline is 11 February 2019. For more information, see the Business Opportunity.