Everyone has long been accustomed to the well-known two main troubles in Russia. But if nothing can be done with the first, then to solve the second, officials periodically try to apply all kinds of measures. But finance, of course, is always lacking.
New ways of financing
Russia is the largest country in the world, and there are a great many roads in it. The authorities constantly have to resort to new ways of financing. In addition to the transport tax paid by each car owner from their own pockets, our citizens also learned about toll roads and, of course, that the most significant damage to roads is caused by heavy vehicles. What is toll? We will understand in this article.
Bills as truck controllers
From trucks that have a mass exceeding 12 tons, from the fall of 2015, an additional fee will be charged for travel on domestic routes. The new amendments entered the Federal Law back in 2007, the title of which is “On Roads and Road Activities in the Russian Federation”. In addition, on July 13, 2015, President Vladimir Putin approved a new law No. 248-FZ, which states that truckloads should not exceed the norm by more than two percent. Otherwise, you will have to pay a toll from 12-ton trucks. According to the plan, which was developed by the Ministry of Transport, by 2020 all federal highways should be equipped with an automated weighted dimensional control system, and road owners will be responsible for complying with the rules.
Tariffs
The picture now is such that if you exceed the size and weight, in addition, you go to the track with federal status, you must pay 3.73 rubles per kilometer. This is the toll. And if he did not fulfill these conditions, then he will have to answer under the article. As part of the implementation of this condition, an administrative fine is imposed on the movement of a truck weighing more than 12 tons without paying a fee for the harm caused to its owner. The driver of such a vehicle will have to pay five thousand rubles, and if the violating car is registered as a legal entity, then as much as 450 thousand. Well, for repeated violation, you have to fork out for as much as one - one million rubles.
What other tolls are possible in Russia?
Project "Plato", or Fee per ton
The operator company, defined by the Government of the Russian Federation for the implementation of new developed programs in accordance with the adopted bills, chose RT-Invest Transport Systems. As part of the work to compensate for the damage caused by heavy trucks, this company developed the Platon project, which stands for “pay per ton”. The project developers shared that the principle of their system involves the automatic collection of fees for the distance that was actually covered by the truck.
Tolls in Russia are a moot point.
What does it look like in practice?
The project operates through the use of satellite navigation systems GPS or, as they are also called, GLONASS. This provides round-the-clock monitoring of all vehicle routes, as well as charging. If payment rules are violated, then their fixation occurs automatically. Two options have been proposed for truck owners to pay for their movement along federal highways.
So, the new toll suggests the following.
The first method involves constant monitoring, in this case the truck is equipped with an on-board tracking device for free, and in parallel a personal account is created for it. The owner of such a car sends the payment to the operator’s account. For each kilometer of the truck traveled on the federal highway 3.73 rubles are charged. According to the developers, this method is suitable for regular cargo transportation along federal highways.
And the second way is to receive a one-time route map for one trip. In this case, the vehicle is registered in a specially created online system, and the trip is paid in advance, depending on the planned route.
What tolls are available in other countries?
The experience of foreign neighbors
It is interesting to note that Russia is far from the first, and even more so, not the only country that has introduced a similar system for collecting payment from trucks. Other countries have been using such projects for quite some time and with varying degrees of success. Attracting attention is the fact that everywhere truck drivers are absolutely not willing to pay a lot, and even more so to overpay for using roads. They often find ways to get around this need in all sorts of very sophisticated ways. Rumor has it that even in law-abiding Germany, drivers found ways to somehow not pass through the identifier frames, and in addition they managed to get bonuses from their employers for this. A Lithuanian neighbor also has experience in introducing similar tolls from trucks, or, as they call them, “road vignettes” for heavy truck drivers.
The Lithuanian portal Cargonews drew a parallel between Lithuanian innovations and Russian prospects. It turned out that not so bad, if you approach the process correctly. According to the stories of employees of various Lithuanian companies, they were also at first afraid of the introduction of fees. But the system was quickly debugged, and the payments themselves did not significantly change the cost of transportation for their customers. Indeed, within the framework of freight reduction, competition is developing quite quickly, and carriers have to consciously go to increase their own costs, while maintaining the starting price for their customers. Lithuanian carriers predict a similar development in Russia. They are especially confident in this because they have many years of experience working with customers from our country.
In Belarus, there is a toll during technical inspection, i.e., a fee for admission to participate in traffic.
Domestic Prospects on Federal Highways
Russian trucking companies doubt that the introduction of fees for the use of federal highways will not affect the cost of transportation for customers. They really have to panic, because innovations predict an increase in freight costs by 16–18%, which is likely to accelerate inflation by two forecasted points. The Ministry of Economic Development is on the side of car owners. Its experts made calculations and found that a tariff of 3.73 rubles per kilometer of toll from heavy trucks is likely to lead to a sharp increase in prices for various consumer goods in the amount of at least five percent.
After all, the cost of delivery of these goods should increase by at least 12%. In view of these preliminary calculations, the agency advises the Government to consider all possibilities to reduce the tariff by at least six times, namely, to 64 kopecks per kilometer. Rosavtodor, of course, opposes such additions. If we calculate the expected annual fees from these innovations, its profit should be about 60 billion rubles a year. Of these funds, part of the money in the amount of 10.6 billion rubles will certainly go to pay for the services of the operator company, and the remaining funds will go to the road fund. And in the event that the authorities decide to introduce a zero fee and to reduce the tariff with its increase by 2019, Rosavtodor will have to fulfill the terms of the concession agreement and pay 10 billion rubles each year.
Now there is a moratorium on the toll until January 1, 2017 on the bill that has been submitted to the State Duma.
Thus, the outcome of the confrontation between manufacturers and carriers on the one hand and civil servants on the other remains unknown at the moment. It is possible that the Plato system, as its numerous customers fear, could cause an unexpected failure. Of course, in the end, this situation will not be able to provoke a collapse of cargo transportation in any case.
This is what the toll on trucks can turn into.
Conclusion
In business, it is very important to fulfill obligations to customers and partners, and few people care about officials participating in bureaucratic innovations. The only thing that litigation regarding the administrative liability of truck drivers, as well as compensation for losses incurred by the developers of "Plato" is to be expected.
We examined what toll is.