On the platform in Podgorica, the train controller looks at the ticket that the passenger bought online, with a clearly marked seat reservation, and shrugs. There are no seats. The train is full, as it is every day.
"It is not possible to reserve a seat, this is a local train and such a service does not exist," he tells reporters from the Center for Investigative Reporting of Montenegro (CIN-CG).
The ticket, however, cost more than double the regular price, precisely because of that non-existent reservation.
This is not an isolated case. According to CIN-CG findings, the new online ticket sales system of the Railways of Montenegro (ŽPCG) is charging passengers for services that the company, at this time, technically cannot deliver. CIN-CG has seen dozens of tickets that confirm this, whether it is a seat reservation on lines where it does not exist, first class on trains that do not have it, or a seat in a sleeping car on the Bar-Belgrade route, where a passenger who has reserved a berth and paid more for it is not sure that he will get it because the controllers on the train have no insight into the online service.
In addition to the problems for passengers, there is also trouble for the company itself. Since conductors do not have any device to check whether a ticket is even valid, anyone with basic knowledge of file editing can change the name on a purchased ticket without any risk of being discovered and riding for free.
The system, available at tickets-zpcg.me, was officially established on July 21, 2026, for international trains between Montenegro and Serbia and all domestic routes. Executive Director Dragana Lukšić On that occasion, she stated that the goal was to make ticket purchases simpler, faster, and more accessible. Seven days later, ŽPCG announced that 787 tickets had been sold and praised the revenue of around 38.000 euros, adding that the system had shown stability, with a minimal number of complaints.
WHAT FOREIGN TRAVELERS SAY
Complaints and negative experiences with the ŽPCG online system are also reported by foreign passengers in comments on the public Facebook page "The Man in Seat 61".
“The Man in Seat 61” is one of the world's most famous platforms dedicated to train travel, run since 2001 by a former British railway employee Mark SmithThe Facebook page is followed by hundreds of thousands of people, and its texts and recommendations are regularly used as a reference source for planning international rail travel, including the Belgrade - Bar railway.
One passenger describes how he booked two double-bed compartments for four passengers online on the Belgrade - Bar route, but upon arriving on the train, the staff had no record of his reservation.
CIN-CG had access to that passenger's ticket: he was charged 155,50 euros for booking four beds in two double compartments, without any information about the number of carriages or compartments.
Another passenger stated that after purchasing a ticket with a supplement for a sleeping car, he received a confirmation without the number of the carriage or berth. When he asked the staff on the platform how the system worked, they had never seen this type of confirmation before and did not know how to proceed. Unlike the first case, the train was full that evening, without a single free berth or couchette, so the passenger was left without the accommodation he had paid for.
According to the current price on the ŽPCG website, a ticket for the Bar - Belgrade route costs 23,80 euros for second class, or 35,60 euros for first class.
According to employees, the only product that first class really refers to is a single compartment in a sleeping car, which, with a mandatory first class ticket, costs a total of 83,60 euros per way. The online system, however, offers the “first class” option with double and triple cabins, although such a combination does not exist in the ŽPCG offer, so the passenger pays a higher fare for a service that he does not receive.
THEY CHARGE MORE FOR NON-EXISTING FIRST CLASS
On local lines within Montenegro, the problem is different and most often affects passengers who are unfamiliar with the domestic system, primarily foreigners. On July 31, CIN-CG journalists simulated the purchase of a ticket for train 6101 on the Podgorica - Virpazar route and found that the platform, in addition to the second-class price of two euros, also offers the option of "reserving a seat" for an additional three euros. This increases the total price to five euros, more than double the regular price.
Checking the same route six days later, on August 3, the reservation price had changed to two euros, which means that the total price for the identical service, on the same route, in the space of a week, varied by a third, without any explanation on the platform itself.
The system itself, in a note below that option, both times acknowledges that “seat reservations are not mandatory on local lines” and that “car and seat numbers are not assigned online, but are assigned by train staff.” This means that the platform offers and charges for a service that it itself, in its own interface, admits is unnecessary and does not guarantee anything, at a price that, as the two published screenshots show, changes without any apparent logic.
A similar difference exists in the class of travel: when purchasing a ticket for local train 6155 on the Podgorica - Bar route, the platform offers the “1st class” option at a price of 4,20 euros, compared to 2,80 euros for second class, even though local trains in Montenegro do not have first class.
All this is happening while, a month before the system's launch, the entire expert team that had been building it for a year and a half was removed from the project. Employees' warnings about the system's shortcomings and possible abuse remained, according to documentation that CIN-CG had access to, without any response from management.
A MAP THAT CHANGES IN TWO CLICKS
Each electronically issued ticket carries a QR code that, in theory, should allow the conductor to instantly check its validity. In practice, this code is completely useless because employees do not even have a device to read it. Instead, they are advised to conduct the control visually.
In order to verify the employees' allegations of possible forgery, CIN-CG tested a legally purchased electronic ticket, issued in the name of one of CIN-CG's journalists for the Podgorica - Airport route. By simply modifying the PDF document, without any special knowledge of IT, the editorial team changed only the passenger's name, leaving the QR code, ticket number and all other data unchanged. The result is a series of visually identical tickets with the same number and the same code, but with a different passenger name.
According to the instructions on the ticket itself, “altered or illegible tickets are not valid.” But since the conductors have no device to detect such an alteration, this warning means nothing in practice.
As further evidence that employees do not have the appropriate equipment, CIN-CG had access to a document titled “Instructions for the Control of Online Tickets on Trains Without Mobile Terminals,” issued on July 30, 2026, signed by the acting director of the Department for Traffic, Transport and Commercial Affairs. Todor Tomasevic. The document instructs conductors to, “in the absence of mobile terminals,” check the ticket by asking the passenger to show the electronic ticket, visually compare the name, route, date and class, and compare the name with the identity document. However, in practice, the legal authority to request an identity document is primarily with the police.
Nowhere in the manual is there any mention of QR code verification or any technical tool to verify the validity of the ticket in real time. The document was issued just three days after the union warned management in writing about an identical problem, and a day before the company publicly announced that “there are no anomalies” in the system.
UNION DEMANDS URGENT SUSPENSION OF ONLINE TICKET SALES
The Union says that an increasing number of tickets purchased online are appearing in local passenger transport every day, which is why conductors cannot properly perform control and collection tasks. These allegations coincide with the content of a written letter that the Unified Union of Workers of ŽPCG sent to the Executive Director, President and members of the Board of Directors and Internal Control on July 27, 2026. President of the Union Miroslav Babović In the letter, he requests an immediate suspension of online ticket sales.
According to the Union's letter, price differences between online and over-the-counter ticket sales have been recorded on several routes, including sleeping cars on the Podgorica - Belgrade line, a ticket on the Airport - Sutomore route, and a group ticket on local train 6102 on the Bar - Bijelo Polje route. The specific amounts are shown in a separate graphic. The Union claims that there are dozens, even hundreds, of such cases.
All the people CIN-CG spoke to confirmed the anomalies and agreed that the conductors had not received any training before the system was launched, nor were they familiar with the layout of the online tickets. They saw them for the first time on the train. The only written document that deals with their handling of such tickets is a July 30 instruction, published only nine days after the official start of sales.
WHY IS THE SYSTEM NOT WORKING AS IT SHOULD?
The answer to the question of why this is happening goes back two years. According to the official ŽPCG Business Report for 2024, adopted by the Board of Directors, the tender for “expansion of the ticket sales information system through new sales channels” was first announced on April 17, 2024, with an estimated value of 150.000 euros in three lots - online sales, mobile terminals and card machines. Two companies submitted bids for this call, “Supra Informatika” from Zagreb and “Data Design” from Podgorica, with “Data Design” offering significantly lower prices in all three lots. The procedure was, according to the report, canceled with the explanation that “no valid bids were submitted”.
The tender was repeated on 1 July 2024, this time without the lottery ticket lot and with a lower estimated value of 110.000 euros. The contract was signed with “Supra Informatika”. ŽPCG has been cooperating with this company since 2002 and it maintains the existing sales system at the cash desks.
After the Zagreb company was nearing the end of its part of the work, IT experts at ŽPCG demanded in February last year that the deal be finalized. They sent an official letter to the management for the procurement of hardware - servers and terminals for online sales, insisting that the tender be announced immediately and through an abbreviated procedure, because the software system was nearing completion and it was estimated that it would be ready for operation in two to three months. According to the tender documentation, the purchase of the equipment would cost around 165.000 euros.
Former member of the Board of Directors Vladimir Djurišić advocated, instead of purchasing, renting the equipment for 10.000 euros per month from the company “Kliker Team”. According to CIN-CG, IT specialists employed by ŽPCG warned the Board of Directors in March 2025 to reject the proposal, deeming it economically unsustainable: such an arrangement would cost ŽPCG 120.000 euros per year, or over a million euros over a ten-year period for equipment whose purchase price was six times lower. According to CIN-CG, in a letter they sent to the Board of Directors, they also emphasized that a strategic system that brings the company millions in revenue must not depend on a third party and monthly lease payments, because in the event of non-payment, the system could be shut down.
During this process, CIN-CG checked the Central Register of Business Entities (CRPS) and confirmed that Đurišić was a member of the supervisory board of the company "Kliker Team", the very company from which the equipment was supposed to be rented.
The IT professionals who reacted and prevented this transaction immediately found themselves the target of pressure and threats, which ultimately resulted in their dismissal and disciplinary proceedings.
In the meantime, the Zagreb-based company has completed its part of the work. On April 25, 2025, “Supra Informatika” completed testing of mobile applications and signed the minutes of handover of the finished software, confirming, a year and a half ago, that the system was technically ready for use.
A month later, a new Board of Directors was formed, and the management of ŽPCG, according to CIN-CG, under pressure from the Ministry of Transport, was forced to finally give up on the idea of leasing equipment and continue with the purchase of hardware according to the previously conducted tender. The same company from Zagreb was awarded the hardware development contract and successfully completed it a year ago. However, instead of introducing a ready-made online ticket sales system last summer, it was archived.
“SUPRA INFORMATICS”: THIS IS UNCLEAR TO US
"It is unclear to us why ŽPCG is not using the software and hardware equipment that it officially purchased from us through public procurement, but is literally using some alternative solution overnight that, at the very least, should not have gone into production in the first place. We have never participated in risky actions that could affect our image or that could damage the reputation of our partners, and we have been working with various European railways on a contractual basis for more than 37 years, all this time without a single negative reference," Supra Informatika told CIN-CG.
This company explains that not a single segment from the two contracts they signed with ŽPCG is in operation to date, although they emphasize that they have fulfilled all obligations according to the agreed deadlines:
"However, for reasons unknown to us, the signing of the contract between ŽPCG and their commercial bank took a year, without which it is not possible to make secure payments with contactless cards according to the security standards prescribed by each bank. That contract between ŽPCG and the bank was signed only last month, for reasons completely unclear to us."
"Supra Informatika" emphasizes that the system currently in use is not their product:
"What has been done recently at ŽPCG (Internet sales) is not our application. That sales process was not done according to any professional rules or internationally prescribed standards, and the international tickets to Serbia sold through that channel are such that neither Srbija voz conductors nor ŽPCG conductors can control them."
Some of the employees at ŽPCG who CIN-CG spoke to claim that this is intentional obstruction, and that the procedure for signing a contract with the bank does not even last a few weeks, let alone a year. CIN-CG did not receive an answer from Crnogorska komercijalna banka (CKB) about the reason for this delay.
"Supra Informatika" also states that they have unofficial information that no training has been provided within ŽPCG for working with mobile terminals:
"We have been trying to find out the real reasons all this time, but to this day we have not received any official answers from ŽPCG, so we cannot pass them on to you."
Putting mobile devices into real-world use, they explain, is a basic prerequisite for passengers to be able to buy tickets and reservations via phone or computer, because only with usable mobile terminals can all tickets and reservations be safely checked by the conductor on the train. Otherwise, they say, more skilled passengers can easily copy tickets for themselves or others and travel for free.
ALL FROM THE BEGINNING
When CIN-CG asked whether they had been informed by ŽPCG about hiring another company for the same jobs they had already completed, “Supra Informatika” responded:
"We did not, and until today, initially only suspected that these were internal attempts to put our solution into operation, now it is completely clear that these procedures for launching online sales have halted our solution, we do not yet know whether it is permanent or only temporary. Namely, we either receive partial answers to our inquiries or we do not receive them at all."
We received no answers to the numerous questions that CIN-CG sent to the management of this state-owned company several times about the job, which cost around 300.000 euros.
At the end of June 2026, Executive Director Lukšić signed a resolution changing the composition of the commission responsible for introducing the online sales system.
He was appointed as the president of the newly formed Commission for the development of Instructions for the use and utilization of mobile terminals for conductors, train attendants and cashiers, as well as the amendment and supplement to Regulation 181 and Regulation 161 in the part relating to their adaptation to the introduction of new sales channels and mobile terminals. Mirko Rmandic.
Part of the questions that CIN-CG sent to the management of ŽPCG were answered by phone by Rmandić, who, in addition to being the president of the aforementioned Commission, is also the head of the Revenue Control Service.
According to Rmandić, there are no flaws in the operation of the online ticket sales system, and he claims that the same tariffs are used as at the box office. He said that 1.670 tickets have been sold online so far and no flaws have been recorded. The system, he says, is not directly connected to booking - reservations are assigned manually, and passengers are notified of the assigned berth by email, which, he claims, is done so that the possibility of error is minimized.
When asked about the sale of first and second class, Rmandić replied that the sleeping cars operate in second class, except for the single compartment, which can be purchased exclusively at the box office. He also stated that at one time, ŽPCG sold promotional tickets only for second class, and that no passenger complained about it. He stressed that the company has no intention of harming any passenger.
As for the technology, he said that the company is currently using the equipment it already has installed, with a utilization rate of only 10 percent, exclusively for this type of work, while the server is used for data synchronization. He stated that they are currently working on the installation of mobile terminals. He added that, as the president of the commission responsible for drafting the operating instructions, he is involved in the process of pairing the system with the booking system, after which, he says, informing passengers by email will no longer be necessary because everything will be automatically connected. According to him, the terminals are arriving soon, and the system will soon function like in Brussels or Paris.
According to allegations made by some employees to the Minister of Transport Filip RadulovićAt the first meeting of the newly formed commission, held on July 1, 2026, Rmandić presented the attendees with the already completed text of the instructions for working with mobile terminals and requested that it be adopted immediately.
According to employees CIN-CG spoke to afterwards, in early July, a Vasilije Zecevic, owner of the company “Bunny Media”. This company, employees claim, set up a parallel ticket sales system, with suspicion that the work was officially paid for up to 8.000 euros, below the threshold that would require a tender. The system that was put into operation in this way did not pass the standard testing and verification procedure, and since the terminals of the company “Supra Informatika” cannot read the codes of this new system, the company had no choice but to order the conductors to only visually inspect the tickets on the passengers’ phones.
"Bunny Media" doo did not respond to CIN-CG's inquiry until the publication of this text.
BUNGIES ARE FACING TERMINATION AND DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS
The ŽPCG has not provided any answers as of the publication of this article. However, they have issued a statement attacking the union and the former IT sector.
Employees CIN-CG spoke with indicate that there is currently a climate of blackmail in the company and that anyone who speaks out risks losing their job.
The most striking example is that on July 15, 2026, formal disciplinary proceedings were initiated against two engineers for “serious breach of duty,” specifically for allegedly refusing to hand over their duties, which, according to them, they themselves had offered on July 1. The management then announced on the company’s website that the engineers had stolen equipment, meaning the official phones that were officially assigned to them, and that they had “locked applications,” which allegedly jeopardized the payment of salaries. The management also filed criminal charges against them, accusing them of sabotaging the system while both were on sick leave.
ČIKOM REFUTED THE RAILWAY MANAGEMENT'S THESIS
These accusations, however, were refuted by the company itself, which management called to confirm them. “Čikom”, the company that in October 2025, under a special public procurement, delivered server and network infrastructure to consolidate the system environment and host components of the online ticket sales system, was rehired months later, amid a dispute over alleged sabotage.
Executive Director of “Čikoma” Vladan Tabas told CIN-CG that his team, upon visiting the site on July 3, 2026, after interviewing the user, did not observe “any elements of a collapse of the infrastructure segment of the system,” which, he says, is his company’s expertise. When asked if he could confirm or deny management’s claim that former employees “locked applications and passwords,” Tabaš replied that it was determined that the system administrator for the server infrastructure was at his workplace, that he had the passwords to access the system, and that he had prepared and distributed the passwords to access the system to newly hired staff, and that the administrator passwords for newly hired employees were functional. According to Tabaš, the problems were not recognized as technical, but as management-communication problems in working with existing and new business applications of ŽPCG, which, he emphasizes, is outside his company’s expertise.
When asked about the compatibility of the delivered hardware with the "Supra Informatika" software and the system used by the "Bunny Media" company, Tabaš replied that the hardware-system platform can deliver resources with full compatibility for most current software solutions, including the "Supra Informatika" software, but that his company has no knowledge of whether the "Bunny Media" system has been implemented on that hardware.
According to CIN-CG's findings, which were obtained through conversations with several interlocutors from different sectors of the company who requested anonymity given the circumstances in which ŽPCG is currently located, the system developed by "Supra Informatika", including software for mobile terminals, was technically completed and ready for use before the company decided to introduce a parallel solution from the company "Bunny Media". Several inside sources claim that its implementation was delayed for months, and some of the interlocutors directly link this delay to unresolved administrative steps at the executive management level, including issues related to the banking contract necessary for the functioning of online payments.
The current situation was commented on by "Supra Informatika" for CIN-CG as follows:
"After more than two decades of successful cooperation between our companies, we hope that the current situation will return to the previous one and that there will be no termination of contracts signed on the basis of public procurements, and the method of engagement of all those who spend public money should be transparent to the public."
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