Regions will have to approve the standards of transport services for the population by March 1, 2024

Citizens will be able to complain to the prosecutor’s office about regional officials who do not comply with “transport service standards”, including the schedule and intervals of public transport. The corresponding procedure should be operational in 2024, according to the draft government decree, which was prepared by the Ministry of Transport. The document also mentions “an indicator of the population’s expenditure on travel on regular transportation routes,” but does not specify what it is about.

Project government regulations, containing requirements for regional standards of transport services for the population, prepared by the Ministry of Transport. The document was discussed on Monday at a meeting of the working group “Road Safety” as part of the regulatory guillotine.

The concept of “regional standard of transport service” State Duma introduced into legislation in November 2022 – we are talking about “indicators that characterize the availability, safety and comfort of transporting passengers and luggage by road and ground electric transport.”

Specific indicators are laid down in the submitted project. Among them, in particular, the maximum share of obsolete rolling stock; the maximum possible interval for the movement of buses and trolleybuses; share of flights departing from scheduled stops; the share of vehicles equipped with a cashless fare system, as well as the share of rolling stock with places for the carriage of wheelchairs, bicycles and electric scooters. The document also mentions “an indicator of the population’s expenditure on travel on regular transportation routes,” but does not specify what it is about.

The subjects of the federation must approve their standards by March 1, 2024 (for a period of at least five years) and then comply, follows from the explanations of the Ministry of Transport. Guidelines will be prepared to help officials. The department believes that the document “will have a positive impact on improving the quality of transport services.”

The population will be able to use the standards to protect their rights, Yevgeny Litvin, co-chairman of the Road Safety working group, explained to Kommersant: for example, complain to the prosecutor’s office if the subject has committed to ensuring transport accessibility of settlements and does not comply with it.

A typical problem in many regions, the expert explained, is when residents of remote villages located on the periphery cannot get to the capital of the subject or even regional centers without a car.

The list of mandatory requirements should be adjusted based on surveys of citizens, Ilya Zotov, chairman of the public association of passengers, believes. “Some of the rules are not very relevant and are of a technical nature,” he points out. “In addition, understanding the scale of the changes, it is worth introducing a transition period, after which to establish responsibility for compliance with these standards. This approach will allow us to speed up the development of passenger transportation with proper budgetary security.” Sanctions for non-compliance with standards can be established by both federal and regional law, the Ministry of Transport explained.

Ivan Buranov