Silence, cargo, silence: the fine for non-payment of "Platon" has been quadrupled

The fine for non-payment in the "Platon" system for the passage of trucks with a gross vehicle weight of more than 12 tons will increase fourfold. This will make it economically unprofitable for unscrupulous carriers to ignore this system. Given the failures that are noted in the work of "Platon", the new rules may also affect the companies that fully pay for the passage of their trucks on the roads, experts warn. Details - in the material "Izvestia".

Economic feasibility

The State Duma passed in the first reading the amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses prepared by the government, providing for an increase in fines for non-payment of the passage of trucks weighing more than 12 tons on federal highways (system "Platon"). The information was published on the official website of the lower house of parliament.

According to the bill, the sanction for this violation is planned to increase four times: from 5 thousand rubles to 20 thousand rubles. The current fine was introduced in 2011 and since then its size has not been revised.

In the accompanying documents to the bill, it is noted thatat the current rates in the system "Platon" (3.05 rubles per kilometer), it is more profitable for trucking companies to pay the fine than the passage itself. As a result, in 2019, according to Rostransnadzor data, 1.097 million rulings were issued under Article 12.21.3 of the CAO, and in 2020 their number increased to 1.173 million. In 2021, the number of detected violations decreased to 830 thousand, but in 2022 sharply increased - immediately to 1.621 million cases. Thus, for 2-3 years, the number of recorded offenses increased by more than 47%.

"In 2023, the increase in the above cases, in which it is more economically advantageous to pay a fine than to pay a mileage fee, amounted to 64% of the value for 2022. Consequently, under these conditions, the task <...> to prevent the commission of administrative offenses is not solved," - follows from the explanatory note to the bill. In this case, the lost income of the federal budget from non-payment of "Platon" can "reach billions of rubles a year", the document emphasizes.

According to Pavel Fedyaev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Transport and Transport Infrastructure Development, the statistics clearly show that fines have stopped working, they have become commonplace and have essentially replaced the need for unscrupulous drivers to pay for travel.

- Roads are being broken, and we remember that road freight transportation has grown a lot lately. But instead of tolls, the treasury gets fines that haven't changed since 2011. If someone likes to pay them so much, it makes sense to simply increase them to the values that will help to maintain the roads in the norm," the deputy told Izvestia.

Guiltless

Increasing the fine in some cases will really make it more economically profitable for trucks to pay official tolls, says Taras Koval, president of the Association of Transport Experts and Specialists.

- At the current "Platon" tariffs, a route from Moscow to Novosibirsk, for example, will cost about 10 thousand rubles. Obviously, in this case it is now more profitable to pay 5 thousand rubles as a fine," he told "Izvestia".

At the same time, the expert emphasizes that due to the incorrect operation of the "Platon" system, even bona fide trucking companies can get a fine for non-payment of tolls. According to him, a company that has a fleet of about 500 trucks and fully pays for their passage in the system, due to various failures still receives about 20-30 fines for non-payment of "Platon" per year.

- It is quite problematic to dispute these fines. To do this, you have to go to Tver - Platon accepts complaints only there. Moreover, it is impossible to appeal them online, as the personal presence of a representative of the carrier company is required," Taras Koval told Izvestia.

Unscrupulous carriers, who in principle do not pay "Platon", bypass the system with the help of various tricks, including deliberately hiding the number when passing checkpoints and security cameras, says Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Za Rulem".

- But those who honestly pay everything, do not hide from anyone, but at the same time by chance or because of some failure suddenly enrolled in the "non-payers", risk to suffer from the increase in fines, - he believes.

Right, but early

Recently, complaints about the operation of the Platon system have become noticeably more numerous, Anton Shaparin, vice-president of the National Automobile Union, told Izvestia. The main complaints are related to incorrect determination of the truck's location by the system due to the work of complexes jamming the GPS signal, he explained.

- The system simply "does not see" the car on this or that section of the highway, or shows that it is in a completely different place. As a result, the carriers receive fines," said the vice-president of NAC to Izvestia.

In his opinion, in the current conditions it is necessary not to increase fines for non-payment of "Platon", but on the contrary, to cancel them. First of all, in situations when there were obvious failures in the system due to external influence in a particular region or road section. Otherwise, more and more trucking companies will be dissatisfied with Platon, including those who pay for their trucks in good faith.

Igor Morzharetto, a member of the Public Council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, agrees with him. According to him, the very idea of the bill, which implies economic leverage against companies and truck drivers who ignore Platon, is correct. However, in the current situation, the idea of increasing fines for non-payers is untimely.

- The problem with non-payment of trucks on the roads exists, and it is quite serious - the number of those who do not pay for the passage of trucks is growing. Obviously, as the fine increases, it will become economically more profitable to work "in the white" with this system. But as long as there are difficulties and failures in the operation of Platon, including due to external factors and inaccurate determination of the geo-position of the truck by the device in the truck cab, in my opinion, it is premature to introduce increased fines for non-payment," Igor Morzharetto told Izvestia.