St Petersburg, 1 June 2017. The agreement was signed by Russian Railways CIO Evgeny Charkin and MegaFon COO Anna Serebryanikova at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The companies plan to step up cooperation to provide passengers on high speed and long distance trains with mobile coverage and wireless internet access across the entire rail network. Another focus of cooperation will be developing and implementing Internet of Things (IoT) projects, such as rolling out smart technologies to collect and transmit information about elements of infrastructure without human input.

"Rolling out innovative services is a priority for us. We are implementing the Digital Railway project, which envisages the widespread application of the latest IT technologies in passenger and freight services, organization of the transportation process and infrastructure management. I am confident that developing digital technologies will make the company more competitive and boost the quality of rail transport services," said Russian Railways CIO Evgeny Charkin.

"MegaFon has the technology and experience to support Russian Railways’ IT development strategy. For example, we can offer solutions for studying and optimizing passenger traffic, monitoring wear and proactive analytics using big data analysis," said MegaFon COO Anna Serebryanikova. "We will continue to develop Wi-Fi internet access on Sapsan high speed trains and to offer subscribers access to the train’s information and entertainment system."