"Plato" will go through the regions

The action of the system of charging fees for the use of federal highways of trucks above 12 tons can be extended to regional roads. The discussion of the “expanded” version of tax for heavy truck drivers began four years ago and took place in parallel with the development of the federal system. The heads of subjects are concerned about the possible increase in the load on the tracks that are subordinate to them, since this will entail additional expenses for the repair of road surface mutilated by trucks. Today it became known that the leadership of the Moscow region is also working on this project.

The fact that the Plato system may begin to operate on roads near Moscow, the Moscow Agency was stated by Deputy Chairman of the Regional Government, Minister of Investment and Innovation of the region Denis Butsaev. “We are working on this project, but the specific timing of commissioning of this kind of system and in general the issue of commissioning a fee for the fares of heavy trucks on regional roads is not currently being discussed,” he said.

As the Vedomosti newspaper previously reported, the regional authorities were seriously concerned about the safety of their budgets and roads as soon as the discussion of the project to charge federal routes began. According to their forecasts, for the sake of saving, truckers will try to go around the main roads along the regional women, many of which are in a deplorable state without additional load.

In 2013, several regions, including the Leningrad, Kaluga, Orenburg regions and Tatarstan, appealed to the Ministry of Transport and Rosavtodor with a proposal to introduce a tax on the use of regional roads by analogy with the federal system in order to balance traffic and compensate for the damage that will cause the maneuver of truckers.

In March, the Ministry of Transport prepared the necessary amendments to the Budget Code and the Law on Roads relating the beginning of the application of this practice for 2017. And at the end of June, deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the Kaluga Region introduced the corresponding bill to the State Duma. The authors of the document indicated the fact that with an increase in the intensity of the use of high loads of roads of regional or inter -municipal significance, there will be a need to transfer them to a higher category and an increase in regional financing.

In this regard, deputies of the Kaluga Legislative Assembly proposed creating legal framework for compensation for damage that will be caused to roads and "ensure the receipt of additional financial resources to the road funds of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local authorities." However, as Evgeny Moskvichev, the head of the State Duma Committee on Transport, recently stated, amendments to the legislation "are not considered, no one even thinks about it."

The leadership of Tatarstan is involved in the most actively working out the regional system. Back in October last year, President of the Republic Rustam Minnikhanov at a meeting of the State Council on roads with the participation of Vladimir Putin proposed expanding the law on the introduction of fees from 12 ton trucks. At the same time, according to Vedomosti, the concession agreement between Rosavtodor and the Operator of the Platon system already contains the possibility of joining the subjects to the federal system. It is impossible to check this, since Rosavtodor refuses to disclose the content of the concession agreement.

Returners and critics of the Plato system previously warned that the new tax will lead to an increase in prices for retail products, but if the operation of the system is expanded for regional roads, prices will increase many times. The deputy head of Rosavtodor Dmitry Pronettov believes that the regional authorities do not have a reason for concern, given the state of roads, as well as the unprofitability of their operation by carriers.

“If lengthening the path is more than 10%, then any economic meaning of this detour is lost. If you take into account the quality of regional roads, which is still almost everywhere lower than federal exceptions, this bypass, in addition to lengthening the path and costs of greater time, fuel consumption and so on, will lead to an even greater reduction in the efficiency of transportation, ” said Pronchatov Business Online.

Valery Voitko, Chairman of the Truckers Union, is sure that the deployment of Plato is economically impractical, but it looks like a sabotage. “If we are talking about regional“ platoons ”, then this can be regarded as a sabotage and a focused collapse of the economic space. At least to carry goods to Siberia will be exactly cheaper from China than from the Urals or the Volga region, ”he told Kommersant . According to truckers, the transport tax on regional routes will simply be replaced by a transport tax, which Vladimir Putin spoke about the possible abolition during a large press conference.