Freight forwarders registered more than 921 thousand heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) in the state system “Platon” over two years. Given the high rate of monthly registration and stable growth of the truck market, the number of vehicles registered in the system in the coming months will reach one million.
The “Platon” system raises nearly 37 billion roubles for repairing roads and building bridges. Freight forwarders determine which highways will be repaired at the expense of these funds using a vote on the “Map of Worn Down Roads”— the project of the All-Russia People’s Front. Taking into account this programme information, more than 1,700 kilometres of roads have been repaired using the funds from the “Platon” system. Construction and reconstruction continue for more than 30 bridges, most of which have been closed for the past few years due to an emergency condition. The most large-scale facilities opened this year thanks to funding from the “Platon” system are the new Borsky Bridge in Nizhny Novgorod, the Voroshilovsky Bridge in Rostov-on-Don. Moreover, the Sverdlovsky Bridge in Penza and along the Gogolevsky overpass in Petrozavodsk will be opened for the traffic in the coming month. All these road facilities are of high social importance, they provide the traffic increased safety and development of transport accessibility of the regions for hundreds of thousands of motorists and freight forwarders.
The introduction of the “Platon” system excludes double taxation. Freight forwarders use the right of deduction from the transport tax. Regional road funds at the same time retained their funds and received compensation in the amount of 8.7 billion roubles. The Government of the Russian Federation allocated funds to each region, depending on the number of HGVs registered in the “Platon” system. For example, Moscow and the Moscow Region received a half billion roubles, St. Petersburg with the Leningrad Region – more than 550 million roubles, Tatarstan – over 390 million roubles, the Krasnodar Territory– 407 million roubles. These funds are used to repair roads and bridges.
During the first two years of work, all offers of freight forwarders were taken into account and completely implemented. In particular, post-payment has been introduced, the system services have been updated for the comfort of users, and the procedure to obtain information for providing the FTS with the right to a tax deduction has been simplified. The control system is fully deployed on all federal highways. It consists of more than 480 frame structures and one hundred special vehicles.
In the first two years, the “Platon” system allowed for a large-scale step towards digitalisation of the whole branch of the Russian economy and ensuring the formation of a transparent cargo transportation market. The government received actual data on the number of freight forwarders and the structure of HGV owners, among which more than 60% are private individuals. FTS has access to the complete register of data on payments of the freight forwarders. The system operator provides daily data on requests from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Service for Social Security and the Federal Customs Service, which are used to exclude violations of the law, carry out operational search activities and detect customs violations. Thus, the state system “Platon” works in the interests of law-abiding freight forwarders. In addition, the most loaded areas of the Russian federal highways are identified using the system data. The programmes on repair of highways are based on such information.
Thanks to the “Platon” system, additional funds for the Russian roads maintenance come from transit transport. 15% of the collected fees are paid by foreign carriers. Taking into account the perspective development of transport corridors, the revenues to the road fund will only increase, which will stimulate a more rapid development of the road network of Russia.
Most Russian freight forwarders have installed free-of-charge on-board units. At the moment, over 700 thousand units have been issued. Toll tickets are obtained mainly by foreign freight forwarders.
