Information systems and technology in the marketing of railway transport

The aim of the article. The aim of the article is to improve the system of theoretical, methodological and methodic background for the implementation of information technology in the marketing system of the railway undertaking. The article identifies the necessity of marketing use in companies which are natural monopolies. Besides the general system of railway transport is described and its place in the marketing system is defined. The existing deficiencies of marketing system have been detected.The results of the analysis. The main computerized control systems, which have been introduced into the system of marketing services in the field of railway transport, were given full consideration in recent years. In particular it has been examined the integration of the automated control system into the system of services associated with freight and the transition from paper to electronic transport documents. Such advantages of system for consumers were determined: time reduction, the possibility of clearance from any station and information received in the automatic mode concerning the freight traffic. The organizational transformation that took place on the railway transport as a result of the specified system integration was considered. The need to create such system for freight crossing the border was defined.System of passenger train tickets sale online in Ukraine has been considered the and its basic shortcomings, including the inability to print previously reserved ticket and the complexity and incomprehensibility of ticket purchase technology online for the consumers was found. The experience of sales system delivering of the passenger railway services has been examined in different European countries and it has been found out that in many countries for tickets sales is used modern information technology: the Internet, via mobile communications, with start-card, etc.Moreover a comparative analysis of web-sites of the Ukrainian and foreign railways has been carried out and the main disadvantages of Ukrainian site were found. The analyzed demand for information regarding the Ukrainian railway website using the Yandex statistical service search system revealed that consumers are mainly looking for information on timetables and possible ticket purchase online. The amount of requests for these services is growing.It has also been revealed that the site of Ukrainian carrier to a greater extent performs rather the function of marketing, than promotion. Thus, site improvements have been proposed.Conclusions and directions of further researches. The necessity of reforming the marketing system of the Ukraines railway transport was justified and the creation of the following marketing vertical was proposed: General Directorate of Strategic Marketing Service of railway marketing. Then the structure of each of the units was proposed. Such methodological foundations of marketing information system as a system of the proposed principles and indicators for assessing the effectiveness of its operation, the levels of the system have also been proposed. Besides a partially filled database automatically based on automated control systems of railway transport was suggested.