We decided to steer

City deputies began to fight private taxi drivers

Moscow officials, who have been hatching plans for many years to return to the mayor's office the control over the city taxi fleet that was lost in the early 90s, seem to have found allies among the capital's deputies. Yesterday, the Moscow City Duma approved in the first reading the draft law “On Taxi in the City of Moscow”, which provides for the creation of a city register of taxi companies and establishes rules for working in the taxi market for its participants. This document, in essence, puts private “bombs” - competitors of large transport companies - outside the law.

It is assumed that participation in the registry will be voluntary, and forcing illegal cab drivers to join it and come out of the shadows is hampered, according to the developers of the bill, by the “lack of federal laws.” Nevertheless, officials believe that bona fide transport workers will be attracted to the register by state guarantees from the Moscow government. “This is the best advertising,” says Leonid Lipsits, head of the Moscow Department of Transport and Communications.

In particular, in 2008, the city promised information support to taxi carriers and taxi ordering services, the budget of which could amount to 2.6 million rubles. According to the chairman of the commission on urban management and housing policy of the Moscow City Duma, Stepan Orlov, municipal parking lots will be created in the busiest transport hubs of the capital for companies registered in the city registry, and this will be an incentive for others.

But as Mr. Orlov himself admitted, all this will not deprive the 50,000-strong army of private owners of “the right to take passengers from the sidewalk.” Moscow City Duma Speaker Vladimir Platonov also admitted that the bill does not affect that “economic component that forces people to engage in private transportation without knowing the rules.” But the responsibilities that participation in the government directory of taxi drivers entails is most likely overwhelming and will only scare away small companies. For example, in addition to more or less standard criteria for the technical condition of the car fleet, the developers of the bill impose a number of requirements on drivers - in particular, a mandatory three years of experience, as well as “good knowledge of the Russian language” and capital roads. In addition, a taxi driver must undergo an annual medical examination and a psychiatric examination every five years.

Representatives of the Duma opposition believe that the Department of Transport, which proposed such a bill, is moving in the wrong direction. “Our prohibitive measures will only lead to the enrichment of traffic cops,” said the head of the Yabloko-United Democrats faction, Sergei Mitrokhin. “But the introduction of a presumptive tax for individual entrepreneurs, including those engaged in private transportation, is overdue.”

Despite the abundance of comments, the majority of deputies still decided to vote for reform of the taxi market in the capital, but the law they approved, it seems, will take a long time to be finalized. The general idea of ​​the Moscow City Duma deputies was formulated by Stepan Orlov, who explained that the problem is not that the document has too many shortcomings, but that “the law is not enough.”

Yulia KHOMCHENKO