Steering direction: double standards may appear in the taxi industry

Double standards may become entrenched in the taxi industry — they want to simplify regulation for self-employed drivers. For example, to exempt cars from repainting and medical examinations. The Ministry of Transport supported the mitigation of the requirements, Izvestia learned. The Agency believes that many standards are excessive for them. Industry representatives support the initiative, stating that a market for carriers has emerged in the country that have failed to comply with the requirements of the current law and have begun to work in earnest. However, some experts insist that the cancellation of a number of requirements may lead to a lack of control over such drivers. The risks that arise due to different requirements for market participants and whether this will affect passenger safety are described in the Izvestia article.

Why do they want to relax the requirements for self-employed taxi drivers

The Ministry of Transport supported the introduction of a separate legislative regulation of the activities of self-employed taxi drivers. This follows from the department's response, signed by Deputy Minister Alexei Shilo, to the bill by Deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for the Protection of Competition, representative of the United Russia faction Sergei Lisovsky. The document, which Izvestia has, notes: the law enforcement practice of the law "On the organization of passenger and Baggage transportation by passenger taxi of the Russian Federation", adopted in 2022, has shown that a number of its norms are excessive for citizens who are engaged in transportation in their spare time.

"The introduction of separate regulation for such carriers seems appropriate both from the point of view of simplifying their withdrawal into the legal field, and from the point of view of increasing tax collection," the deputy head of the Ministry of Transport said in a response.

At the same time, the agency supports the concept of the bill, noting the need to finalize it. At the same time, the ministry suggested that the deputy justify the expediency of developing a separate law, rather than making changes to the current regulation on taxi regulation.

The draft law, which is available to Izvestia, proposes to introduce special regulation of the work of self-employed taxi drivers in private cars. In particular, it provides for simplified registration through an aggregator, without contacting Gosuslugi and the MFC. In addition, for this category of carriers, it is proposed to waive mandatory pre- and post-flight medical examinations, as well as requirements for car painting.

At the same time, the bill establishes the basic requirements for individual carriers. They relate to driving experience, health status, lack of criminal record for serious and especially serious crimes, as well as administrative violations in the field of traffic. In addition, drivers must have the status of self-employed and be included in the register of persons who carry passengers by private transport.

The conditions for using a personal car as a taxi are separately regulated: it must comply with the requirements of the technical regulations and have a valid CTP policy.

— We will be working on finalizing this bill. Its rules are aimed at ensuring that citizens can legally work part—time in a taxi in their cars, pay taxes and not go into the gray zone of transportation," Sergei Lisovsky explained to Izvestia.

Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Transport with a request to comment on whether the agency plans to participate in the revision of the bill.

Pros and cons of simplifying legislation for the self-employed

Business representatives told Izvestia about their support for the initiative, noting that the current taxi law, adopted in 2022, is primarily aimed at professional fleet carriers and individual entrepreneurs in private cars who systematically provide such services.

— The majority of private drivers in private cars remain outside the regulation today. For example, more than 3 million such carriers are connected to our service alone. Outside of million-plus cities, they are the ones who, for economic reasons — due to the low density of orders and the small average receipt - provide 90-100% of the transport accessibility of the population, which is performed by taxis in megacities. Therefore, we are aware of Sergei Lisovsky's bill and support it," the Maxim taxi press service told Izvestia.

They also stressed that self—employed drivers are often objectively unable to meet the requirements for a professional carrier, such as repainting cars, mandatory technical and medical examinations, as well as special insurance policies, the cost of which is ten times higher than usual, and so on.

— In regions where systemic pressure measures are applied against such drivers — fines and car arrests — there is already a massive departure of carriers from aggregators to gray chats and social networks, where control purchases are impossible. According to a study by ANO Digital Platforms, in 2024 the number of users of such resources exceeded 10.5 million, hundreds of thousands of trips are made through them every day, Maxim noted, emphasizing that such transportation is becoming unsafe for both passengers and drivers themselves.

The service also noted that gray market participants do not pay taxes. For this reason, the company believes, in order to bring such carriers into the legal field, separate legislation is needed with requirements that self-employed drivers can actually fulfill.

— The Association of the Self-employed of Russia, which unites about 270 thousand private drivers, supports the initiative on separate regulation of drivers in private cars. Of all the types of passenger transportation provided for by civil law — from trips by order to renting with a crew — only passenger taxis are not fully regulated. Therefore, the authorities actually require private drivers to comply with the rules of a professional taxi, which has shown its inconsistency, the organization's press service told Izvestia.

They believe that it is necessary to establish clear and feasible requirements for private drivers, some of which are already included in the draft law. In particular, we are talking about mandatory registration as self-employed, transportation by private cars and work exclusively through digital platforms. The latter, in turn, should provide travel insurance, driver verification using an interagency interaction system, as well as maintaining a digital transportation footprint.

The press service of Yandex Taxi, the largest transportation aggregator, refrained from commenting.

— These medical examinations have long turned into fiction. Drivers carry bundles of papers with them, but no one passes them. Therefore, their cancellation will not affect the safety of passenger transportation in any way. The future probably belongs to some kind of remote technologies for such medical examinations," said Kirill Yankov, Chairman of the Union of Passengers of Russia.

According to him, self-employed drivers play an important role in taxis and are in high demand. If they are not in the legal field, tariffs may increase several times, therefore, for those who do not work in this field on a permanent basis, relief is needed, the expert believes.

At the same time, Pavel Shapkin, chairman of the National Consumer Rights Protection Union, stressed that medical examinations are now formal for both the self-employed and professional taxi drivers, but this is not a reason to cancel them.

— The employer or aggregator should be responsible for who he lets out to work, and not give a discount of 100 rubles for the next trip if something suddenly goes wrong, because taxi drivers often work abnormally at night, — said the expert.

Therefore, according to him, there should be at least a minimal video check through the same MAX messenger, which, after a short conversation, could determine how much a person is able to provide safe passenger transportation services.

— It is important to understand that a driver who transports himself and close relatives is one situation, and passengers are completely different, it is important to understand the condition of the person. Yes, most medical examinations are now formal, as the required number of medical offices has not been created, so the law is not being implemented. But it's not worth canceling this requirement for taxi drivers, as this may lead to drivers entering the route under the influence of alcohol or drugs," agrees Ilya Zotov, chairman of the All—Russian Passenger Association.

In his opinion, it is necessary to adopt a standard for remote medical examination, which will give the driver the opportunity not to go anywhere and undergo such examinations right in the car. At the same time, he agrees that a number of requirements for self-employed taxi drivers need to be simplified.

— The employer or aggregator should be responsible for who they hire, and not compensate for possible risks with a discount on the next trip, — the expert noted.

He stressed that taxi drivers often work at night and therefore need at least minimal video monitoring via the MAX messenger, which allows, after a short check, to assess whether a person is able to safely transport passengers.

In his opinion, the solution is to introduce a remote medical examination that can be performed directly in the car. At the same time, the expert supports simplifying a number of requirements for self-employed taxi drivers in order to legalize their activities and reduce barriers to work.