PKP intercity phone app

[gordonthemoron]

Is there an English language version of this? I downloaded it and it's all in Polish with no apparent option to change the language

 

[F Great Eastern]

No - You also need a Polish mobile number to buy tickets on PKP Mobile Navigator anyway. If you just want timetabling and live running info, download the classic version of Bilkom whilst you still can.

A new app for Bilkom is being launched soon and the web version is already up. This is the first version to be developed back in house since TK Telekom was liquidated and re-integrated into PKP and will fully remove English language support.

PKP are a highly regressive company when it comes to languages and customer service standards in general, the only parts of PKP that have done anything really customer friendly are the parts that were split out of it or run at arms length. Unfortunately in the last year or two most of these parts have been put back under the PKP umbrella directly and PKP have managed to reverse a lot of the good work they did.

 

[Cloud Strife]

PKP are a highly regressive company when it comes to languages and customer service standards in general, the only parts of PKP that have done anything really customer friendly are the parts that were split out of it or run at arms length. Unfortunately in the last year or two most of these parts have been put back under the PKP umbrella directly and PKP have managed to reverse a lot of the good work they did.

It's not a surprise. PKP has always been a very political company, and now that the government is "anti-privatisation" (or in truth, pro-political cronyism), there's little to no hope of the PKP group improving anytime soon.

Rumours locally suggest that the government are going to attempt to kill the provincial train companies next, especially if they take control of provincial parliaments in the elections next month.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Rumours locally suggest that the government are going to attempt to kill the provincial train companies next, especially if they take control of provincial parliaments in the elections next month.

Well that has been going on for years truth be told. In 2011 Przewozy Regionalne (regional transport) which was split out of PKP, were rolling out real time information, online ticket sales, ticket machines, Wifi on-board, media streaming on board trains and many other things on it's flagship RegioKspress services, some of which PKP still have not invested in to this day almost seven years later or have poor versions.

PR had plans to roll RegioEkspress out further but soon after rolling these services out they were suddenly met with pathing issues for said trains and massive hikes to access charges and capacity reducing track maintenance programs that always seemed to occur at the times of day that their trains ran. Supposedly neutral ticket vendors staffed by PKP denying RE services existed, no mention of them in timetable prints due to "błąd drukarski" (misprints) that happened suspiciously often.

In the end RegioEkspress died. PR is effectively a dead horse now, it's been split into many different regional operators so many times and took so much punishment over the years from PKP that it's a shadow of what it could have been. Even today though, the majority of ticket machines at PKP stations are still owned by PR, PKP have invested in very very little in this area. Now PR is left running mostly a massive fleet of knackered trains.

The app is another example of stupidity. Bilkom was developed by TK Telekom, split out of PKP years ago and with private sector involvement. Since being re-intergrated into PKP it's been ripped to pieces to the point where it changed from a multi-lingual passenger portal with updates, real time info and journey planning to a Polish only journey planner on the web version and the mobile version, originally built on technology similar to the DB app, is soon to go the same way.

They've messed stations up as well since they've been back in house rather than at an arms length company. Krakow Glowny is a nightmare since they closed the old building which ran alongside the refurbished station for many years. They've literally moved everything from there to underneath the platforms and cut off any direct access to the station (you have to go through the shopping center) and the bus station (you have to go through the shopping center and train station!) and moved the ticket hall and all other facilities in the old building down there, to the point where there is way too much stuff down there now. It takes half an hour to get served in the supermarket. Really. When they moved the facilities from the old building down, they made space for them by shrinking the size of the shops under the station. And now they get totally overwhelmed. Then you have the crowding at peak time, where every coach passenger has to go through the whole shopping centre and station to get to there from the Old Town. When it was first refurbished it was lovely. But it's hell now at peak.

 

[Zamracene749]

The easiest way with a smartphone is to avoid the apps and use the intercity.pl website. You have to register but once that is done buying tickets on the go is a doddle, up to 15 mins before departure. All in English too. HTH

 

[F Great Eastern]

The easiest way with a smartphone is to avoid the apps and use the intercity.pl website. You have to register but once that is done buying tickets on the go is a doddle, up to 15 mins before departure. All in English too. HTH

Beware though that the English version of the PKP information website is very out of date and the Polish version often has newer, more accurate, but contradictory information! The online ticket purchasing system works, yes, but is a little clunky.

 

[Zamracene749]

Beware though that the English version of the PKP information website is very out of date and the Polish version often has newer, more accurate, but contradictory information! The online ticket purchasing system works, yes, but is a little clunky.

The English news area of the site is dreadful, agreed! I tend to run that through chrome translate. I didn't find buying tickets difficult though, at least not once the registration process was complete, although it does make you enter card details for every transaction, which is a pain! It still beats the socks off the appalling ticket office queues, and those ticket machines that seem to have comedy touch screens fitted!

 

[F Great Eastern]

Do you mean the newer ones with terrible touch or the ones that are in Warsaw Centralna? The Scheidt & Bachmann ones like we have in the UK are fine, but the other ones that PKP bought themselves are aful, agreed.

Yeah - much better to run the Polish version through a translator, it makes more sense and is more coherent than the actual English version as well as being up to date, which is ridiculous but true.

 

[Zamracene749]

Do you mean the newer ones with terrible touch or the ones that are in Warsaw Centralna? The Scheidt & Bachmann ones like we have in the UK are fine, but the other ones that PKP bought themselves are aful, agreed.

Yeah - much better to run the Polish version through a translator, it makes more sense and is more coherent than the actual English version as well as being up to date, which is ridiculous but true.

I'm honestly not sure what make the machines are, I was too busy banging my head against em and sobbing in frustration to notice! Joking aside, the ones inside and outside at Wrocław are the ones that I've trouble using..

 

[Cloud Strife]

They've messed stations up as well

There is actually some logic to the station situation, strange as it sounds. Essentially, the Polish mentality is that "everything that is public is no-ones", and so things like railway stations tend to suffer plenty of abuse at the hands of the public. As a result, the modern trend in Poland is to integrate public transport with shopping malls, so that the shopping malls provide security in exchange for having situations such as you described. It makes sense in most places (such as in Poznań or Katowice), but to ditch the beautiful old Kraków Głowny for that mess is unforgivable, and there was almost certainly some corruption involved during the planning process. It's even more absurd when you consider how Wrocław Głowny was renovated beautifully only a few years ago. Knowing how Poland works, I'd certain someone was almost certainly paid off when that decision was made.

Still, everything you say is absolutely true. There are so many examples of PKP incompetence that we would be here all day discussing them - and worse still, some of it is simple malice mixed with diabolical political oversight. For instance, it's taken 10 years (since the great pospieszny ("fast train" move to PKP Intercity) for integrated ticketing to become available between PKP Intercity and PR so that the fares are linked according to the distance-based tariff rather than two separate tickets. Why on earth has it taken so long?

A good example of the incompetence of the PKP Group was in Bytom - http://www.lighting-gallery.pl/viewtopic.php?f=127&t=5512 - they allowed the station to fall into this level of disrepair, without any real reason for it. It's been renovated now, but the universal thing about these renovated stations is that they're mostly grey, ugly and lifeless affairs.

Or I can give another example. I went to Belarus a couple of months ago, and I was trying to buy the ticket in advance for the train between Terespol and Brest. I found the train on the Belarusian railways website, I found it on some journey planners, but PKP Intercity refused to sell the ticket because it didn't appear on http://rozklad-pkp.pl/ although it appeared in plenty of other places. I gave them the exact details of the train, the train number, the time, everything. Nothing - because it wasn't on rozklad-pkp, it didn't exist. I even showed them the train on different websites, but they were adamant that it had to be on rozklad-pkp for them to issue it. I took a chance and went to Terespol, and I got the ticket there without problems - but the woman at the window told me that they've frequently got the same problem with people trying to buy tickets in advance for that journey. PR also don't help things by only selling the ticket at a handful of ticket windows in Poland.

In comparison, Belarusian Railways sold the ticket for Brest->Terespol online, and all I needed to do was give the booking number at the station in Brest to get a physical ticket.

I'm honestly not sure what make the machines are, I was too busy banging my head against em and sobbing in frustration to notice! Joking aside, the ones inside and outside at Wrocław are the ones that I've trouble using..

Those are absolutely awful. If you're making a journey on regional trains in Poland, the Koleo app is well recommended - it works regardless if you have phone signal or not (as long as you have internet when buying the ticket), and it's a very quick process for buying tickets. I'm only not sure if it's in English or not, because I don't really notice anymore if something is in Polish or English.

About the ticket office queues - I frankly have no idea why the majority of idiots stick stubbornly to ticket offices here. I'm speechless when I see a young person queue for 30 minutes just to buy a ticket for a journey that can be bought through the Koleo app in seconds.

 

[F Great Eastern]

There is actually some logic to the station situation, strange as it sounds. Essentially, the Polish mentality is that "everything that is public is no-ones", and so things like railway stations tend to suffer plenty of abuse at the hands of the public. As a result, the modern trend in Poland is to integrate public transport with shopping malls, so that the shopping malls provide security in exchange for having situations such as you described.

Sure, but the original Dworzec Polski (station management and development company, ran at arms length to PKP, forced into bankruptcy, then re-absorbed into PKP) plan was that the station would be modernised underneath, and at platform level but the old station building would continue to operate as another way to enter the station, with the booking hall and ticket office staying there. You could then walk around the side of Galleria Krakowska to go directly into the station and access the coach station, without having to go under every track and through the shopping centre.

Moving the main hall, ticket desks and everything else down under the platforms as well as forcing coach passengers to walk through the station whilst also removing direct access to the station from the Old Town, since now you have to go through Galleria Krakowska that has just managed to make a spacious station under the platforms be chaos at peak time, because there are people going through there that previously went around the shopping centre to get to the bus park or access the station, people buying tickets are also going in there now and whilst it's a good thing to have the ticket hall under one roof, the sheer number of people that are pushed through the station that could go around it before means it's just overcrowded at peak time and the beautiful old station building lays unused. It's so sad. I love the refurbishment of the platforms of Krakow that must have happened over 6 or 7 years ago now, but the overcrowding is totally unnecessary.

A good example of the incompetence of the PKP Group was in Bytom - http://www.lighting-gallery.pl/viewtopic.php?f=127&t=5512 - they allowed the station to fall into this level of disrepair, without any real reason for it. It's been renovated now, but the universal thing about these renovated stations is that they're mostly grey, ugly and lifeless affairs.

Or I can give another example. I went to Belarus a couple of months ago, and I was trying to buy the ticket in advance for the train between Terespol and Brest. I found the train on the Belarusian railways website, I found it on some journey planners, but PKP Intercity refused to sell the ticket because it didn't appear on http://rozklad-pkp.pl/ although it appeared in plenty of other places. I gave them the exact details of the train, the train number, the time, everything. Nothing - because it wasn't on rozklad-pkp, it didn't exist. I even showed them the train on different websites, but they were adamant that it had to be on rozklad-pkp for them to issue it. I took a chance and went to Terespol, and I got the ticket there without problems - but the woman at the window told me that they've frequently got the same problem with people trying to buy tickets in advance for that journey. PR also don't help things by only selling the ticket at a handful of ticket windows in Poland.

The initial upgrade of Warszawa Centralna in 2010/2011 was pretty poor for me. All the extra lighting did was show more grey and how dirty the place had become and the main hall really didn't improve much and was dark and ugly. That improved in the most recent renovation in 2015 or thereabouts, but I still don't think that it is anything special and it still feels grey and ugly in places.

The situation with ticket sales is often complex in the big cities. Since Dworzec Polski went belly up, PKP basically stated that in certain stations, ticket sellers should be neutral rather than displaying who the staff were working for as they should be selling a whole range of tickets for all operators as shown on the window of the ticket office. In reality most windows were PKP staffed but a few staff were PR. The only way to tell really who the staff were working for, was to look at the colour of clothes they were wearing or find out which number window was PR staff. The problem was the PKP vendors were anything but neutral, frequently denying the existence of PR trains or trying to talk you out of buying them.

Your experiences with buying tickets is very familiar. Trying to buy a RegioEkspress (RIP) ticket was hard 5-6 years ago. They went by lists more those days than the website, and often these trains did not appear on the departures lists nor did they appear in the books the staff had. The excuse was always a misprint. Luckily I figured out which ticket windows were staffed by PR staff and they were very apologetic and said that they have had a lot of problems with people doing this, but they are powerless since PKP see PR as a threat. I wrote a complaint to PKP but they said it was a misprint but it kept happening.

PR certainly were not perfect even a few years ago, but what made a difference with them is that they had people who tried. They tried to improve things, they tried to innovate and they tried to take things forward, despite the fact that they had every single obstacle possible thrown in their way to stop them. If you think that RegioEkspress (see here) pioneered Wifi back in 2012 and PKP still haven't got it on the Pendolinos some 6 years later, it really says it all considering the lack of money PR had and the huge pots PKP have.

 

[CC 72100]

Moving the main hall, ticket desks and everything else down under the platforms as well as forcing coach passengers to walk through the station whilst also removing direct access to the station from the Old Town, since now you have to go through Galleria Krakowska that has just managed to make a spacious station under the platforms be chaos at peak time, because there are people going through there that previously went around the shopping centre to get to the bus park or access the station, people buying tickets are also going in there now and whilst it's a good thing to have the ticket hall under one roof, the sheer number of people that are pushed through the station that could go around it before means it's just overcrowded at peak time and the beautiful old station building lays unused. It's so sad. I love the refurbishment of the platforms of Krakow that must have happened over 6 or 7 years ago now, but the overcrowding is totally unnecessary.

Thanks for this insight - when I was there it seemed very much 'shopping centre first, station after' and I found that all the ticket machines were dotted around as single machines.

The old building I can imagine was rather grand - if not unloved come the end of its use - and a very fitting station for the city back in the day.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Thanks for this insight - when I was there it seemed very much 'shopping centre first, station after' and I found that all the ticket machines were dotted around as single machines.

The old building I can imagine was rather grand - if not unloved come the end of its use - and a very fitting station for the city back in the day.

Krakow Glowny has always been tightly integrated into Galleria Krakowska ever since GK was built, the difference is when KG was modernised, they refurbished the underpasses, the platforms etc and subways but kept the old building open with a ticket hall and also the side entrance and direct access to the station was still there from the Old Town, as was the ability to go around the shopping centre to reach the coach park. Sure the building was old, but closing it just redirected a load of people to an already busy place that is now overcrowded.

Want to go to the station? Go through the shopping centre. Want to go to the coach station? Go through the shopping centre and walk under all platforms and out the other side. Want to go to buy a ticket? Walk through the shopping centre and half the platforms? Want to see what it's like to see all those people going under the station at peak time and find out what it's like to wait half an hour to be served in the most narrow supermarkets I've ever seen Go to Krakow Glowny at peak. Way too many people being pushed through one route that were not before.

Most of the ticket machines are still the ones that were bought by PR years ago, they're wearing new clothing now and the newer machines by PKP are awful. But the reason there are only single ones is because PKP can't be bothered to buy any more decent ones, because that is what they are like!

Attached a photo of the PR bought machines, in the original condition and the newer clothing they are in which hides who they really belong to. You can find a list of them here, if you want to know where to find a decent ticket machine. They sell all tickets, for today, other days, for all operators and special offer tickets also can be bought on them and they'll also do timetable lookups. I was recently able to buy a train+bus ticket from one of them.

 

[CC 72100]

That's exactly the machine I used. Thanks again for all your information on the Polish situation, it's a really useful insight into how it works and the relationship between PKP and poor old PR.

It did feel crowded under the platforms in the morning peak, and as you've alluded to, is a situation that leads to travellers and shoppers getting in eachother's way, so nobody really benefits.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Indeed, plus you have the coach passengers going through there now as well that you never had before!

PR used to be part of PKP, but when they were seperated PKP transferred all the busiest trains back to itself (which became the dreaded TLK brand) and pretty much left PR with all the crumbs and the worst stock.

Surprised those machines are bad, since they're the very same ones as used in the UK, the ones attached here are the work of the devil mind, and of course, they only sell PKP tickets and feature appealing translations, after they got English that is.

 

[CC 72100]

Surprised those machines are bad, since they're the very same ones as used in the UK

Oh no - that machine was fine and very easy to use. Just not many of them and they seemed to have single machines in all sort of nooks and crannies, as opposed to a bank of machines (ie. in this area you buy your ticket) in the same place.

I'd love to see some of the translations

 

[F Great Eastern]

Oh no - that machine was fine and very easy to use. Just not many of them and they seemed to have single machines in all sort of nooks and crannies, as opposed to a bank of machines (ie. in this area you buy your ticket) in the same place.

I'd love to see some of the translations

The fact that those S&B machines were all an initiative of PR back in 2010/2011 and the fact that the ticket offices in the bigger stations were mostly fully run by PKP, may well be related and PKP really don't want people using ticket machines, they'd far rather you go to their ticket office and buy a ticket to keep their staff in a job.

PKP have bought very few ticket machines themselves, but that's just another symptom of PKP as a whole and their contempt for customers, why they removed real time train running info from Bilkom, badly maintained English website, don't fit Wifi to their most premium trains and were very late in the day to online ticketing and their general lack of giving a toss about customers. It's a massive bureaucratic company that badly needs breaking up.

 

[Cloud Strife]

PR used to be part of PKP, but when they were seperated PKP transferred all the busiest trains back to itself (which became the dreaded TLK brand) and pretty much left PR with all the crumbs and the worst stock.

I think it's worth pointing out as to what the reasoning was. PKP Intercity was supposed to become the operator of long distance trains, which would then be privatised. Przewozy Regionalne was then transferred to the ownership of the provincial governments, which would focus on creating something comparable to DB Regio.

The problem was that PR also a bastion of Communist-era mentalities, such as overstaffed trains and a home to many of the worst employees from the original PKP. Passengers were sick and fed up of them, and so the larger and wealthier provinces decided to create their own companies in response to the repeated failings from PR. Several provinces poured cash (and EU cash) into creating these companies, taking away many routes from PR and creating new ones within their provincial train companies instead with modernised/new built trains. Then they went about intentionally destroying PR from within to ensure that they wouldn't be competition for their own companies, and the company got worse and worse. It didn't help that PR was given with debts to the provinces, who had no interest or desire to pay those debts.

I can't stand PR as a company due to the high chance of getting a broken old wreck on the service, yet the last PR service I took (Łuków-Terespol-Łuków) had perfectly nice rolling stock, complete with wifi and very clean trains. The question remains why such rolling stock is being wasted on an service to the Eastern borderlands with a handful of passengers when PR are operating Wrocław-Łódź with horrible and broken old EN57's.

(As an aside, I thoroughly recommend using the Koleo website/app to buy tickets for regional trains in Poland. My train didn't turn up yesterday, no information available at the station, and Koleo refunded the ticket without question. You're supposed to apply for a refund through the train operator, but they refunded it within 2 hours without question - impressive service for a Polish company!)

 

[F Great Eastern]

I think it's worth pointing out as to what the reasoning was. PKP Intercity was supposed to become the operator of long distance trains, which would then be privatised. Przewozy Regionalne was then transferred to the ownership of the provincial governments, which would focus on creating something comparable to DB Regio.

Actually that's almost right, but essentially when PR was part of PKP, it had a rather large portfolio of services and a large portfolio of rolling stock. When it was split out, a very short while later, most of the better rolling stock and the best performing routes and paths were split out of the company and took back to PKP. A number of the most high performing PR trains became TLK and the worst ones stayed as PR.

The problem was that PR also a bastion of Communist-era mentalities, such as overstaffed trains and a home to many of the worst employees from the original PKP. Passengers were sick and fed up of them, and so the larger and wealthier provinces decided to create their own companies in response to the repeated failings from PR.

But that version of PR was completely strangled by PKP who were determined to do anything that was required to make sure that InterRegio services with modern rolling stock and also RegioEkspress services with modern rolling stock, that was WAY ahead of anything that PKP had in 2011, were not a success and you cannot blame PR for that. PR wanted to improve and put some new things in place but PKP were determined to not let them get a foot-hold at the expense of any of their own revenue.

PKP staffed offices refusing to acknowledge that the services with new and modernised rolling stock with Wifi even existed by accidental misprints of timetables and their own staff refusing to sell tickets for such 'non-existent' trains. They had a perverse load of engineering works at odd times that always used to effect these services, the old 'capacity restrictions' excuse at Warszawa Centralna that seemed to effect very few of their own train but regularly a PR, the removal of paths, massive hikes to track access charges just to name a few things.

I can't stand PR as a company due to the high chance of getting a broken old wreck on the service, yet the last PR service I took (Łuków-Terespol-Łuków) had perfectly nice rolling stock, complete with wifi and very clean trains. The question remains why such rolling stock is being wasted on an service to the Eastern borderlands with a handful of passengers when PR are operating Wrocław-Łódź with horrible and broken old EN57's.

Well PR had a massive plan to overhaul a large amount of wagons to RegioEkspress standards, but because of the fact that such services were deemed as being a threat to PKP, there were many obstacles that were put in their way, such as that I have illustrated above and as such PR ended up seeing very little return on this investment and ultimately lost a shed load of money. That meant they couldn't foll it out on the route you talked about and Poznan to Berlin, which was blocked because of the impact it might have on PKP.

The problem with Rail in Poland is that PKP very much are king. The customer isn't. PKP's interests come before that of public transport in general. The fact they didn't introduce online ticketing till years after PR, the fact that 7 years after PR introduced Wifi, they still don't have it on their top grade services and the fact that they've not invested in a single ticket machine themselves outside of Warsaw, shows you what they think of their customers.

The death of InterRegio and RegioEkspress has given PKP what it wants. It now essentially has no competition for the vast majority of it's network, since nearly all of the inter-regional services and longer distance services that PR used to run no longer exist, instead you have a fragmented system of a few smaller operators operating almost fully within their own region. So PKP couldn't care less now and PR aren't going to challenge them again anytime soon.

PR had a lot of knackered old stock, I completely grant you that but that wasn't because all PR management were completely incompetent or idiots, it was largely because that they had to cope with a system that really was being operated in a way that almost made it completely impossible to run a railway company.