2018 FIFA World Cup
The 2018 FIFA World Cup games were held in 11 cities of Russia.
For the first time in the Cup’s history, fans were granted free rail travel to host citiesFPC’s costs were subsequently reimbursed by regional authorities..
Transporting fans by the Federal Passenger Company’s trains during the 2018 FIFA World Cup
Spectators were granted free travel to cities hosting the matches they were attending provided they had:
- a valid football match ticket or a document that entitled them to receive one
- an official ID
- a hard-copy FAN ID.
During the days of the World Cup, 75 additional trains were made up by nine branches of the Company, performing 734 free train runs to serve football fans, with 318,900 fans using the free service.
Train attendant teams for these additional trains were staffed with our best front-line people from train attendant teams with exemplary customer service recognised with a Trust Certificate (a corporate service quality award).
A total of 2,636 FPC train attendant team members completed the Serving Travellers during the Days of the 2018 FIFA World Cup training course, with 434 train attendants taking crash courses in English. In addition, all train attendant teams took ad-hoc professional training covering football culture, rules for effective communication, including cross-cultural communication, handling problem passengers, and the basics of stress management.
On FPC trains, the Poputchik (Fellow Passenger) multimedia portal service was made available to all travellers. The portal provides passengers with on-board access to regular internet services and multimedia (press, books, music streaming, films, games, etc.) regardless of whether 3G/4G mobile networks are available. A total of 97,700 passengers used the portal.
Transport security officers were travelling on all additional passenger trains made up to serve football fans.
The event organisers, the FIFA leadership, and, most importantly, football fans highly commended the superior customer service provided on our trains.
