Cab drivers are moving to a "chauffeur driven car rental service"

Cab aggregators have begun to abandon the eponymous name in favor of "car rental service with driver". This business model does not involve expensive MTPL and carrier insurance, medical and technical inspections, and trip tickets, as in taxi companies in big cities.

To carry in Russian: The State Duma has relaxed the requirements for taxi cars

How will the new rules affect the cost of transportation

One of the largest aggregators Maxim, which accumulates up to 70% of the legal market of passenger transportation in the regions, announced the transition to the scheme of renting cars with drivers, which does not fall under the law on cabs. The triggers for this were the tightening of control in the regions over medical examinations of cab drivers, additional insurance of carriers by the OSGOP, and the law on localization of cars.

The current law on cabs was written mainly for cab fleets in large cities, but it does not sufficiently take into account the interests of private drivers, who occasionally pick up passengers in private cars, Maxim Shusharin, director of the service, told Izvestia. These are different business models, and it was a mistake to combine them into one law.

He believes that the requirements of the law are objectively unfeasible for a private car driver. There is no infrastructure of medical and technical inspections in the country. The cost of insurance at the cab fare often exceeds the annual revenue of such a driver.

"In order to leave part-time drivers in the legal field, we have switched to the scheme of "renting a car with a driver". Abroad, this business model is called raidhailing," Shusharin said.

According to deputy Sergey Lisovsky, a working group has been formed in the State Duma to work out new amendments to Federal Law 580. Two ways to solve the problem are proposed. First, it is necessary to simplify the procedure of medical control and make annual medical examination a mandatory condition when connecting to an aggregator (service of ordering a passenger cab). The second way is to prepare a separate bill regulating light transportation under the contract of car rental with a driver. (self-employed with their own car). This could take up to two years, the deputy believes.

Read more in the exclusive material "Izvestia":

Checkers - and go: cab drivers are moving to the "service of renting cars with a driver"