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- Moderate pressure: remote medical examinations of drivers are not in demand in the regions
Moderate pressure: remote medical examinations of drivers are not in demand in the regions
More than half of all remote medical examinations of drivers before flights in 2025 occurred in Moscow and the Moscow region, according to the data from the Research Institute of Motor Transport (NIIAT). Previously, experts and deputies have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that medical examinations are often just a formality: drivers simply buy a document confirming their passage. NIIAT experts suggest that in order to improve road safety, it is necessary to equip as many public places as possible with remote inspection systems, for example, to install them at gas stations. For more information about the situation with pre—flight medical examinations, see the Izvestia article.
How do remote medical examinations work?
In 2025, about 15 million professional drivers in Russia used the service of remote medical examinations, but the bulk of such procedures are carried out only in Moscow and the Moscow region, the Scientific Research Institute of Motor Transport found out. The practice has not been fully operational in the regions.
At the end of 2022, a law was passed allowing the use of telemedicine technologies for pre-trip, pre-shift and post-trip medical examinations of drivers from September 1, 2023.
Special medical equipment allows you to remotely measure the temperature, blood pressure of the driver and the alcohol content in the exhaled air.
But there are categories that can only undergo a physical examination in person.: These are drivers who transport dangerous goods, groups of children, and carry out intercity passenger transportation over a distance of more than 300 km.
According to a study by the institute (Izvestia has it), of the total number of those who have undergone remote medical examinations, 30% are in the Moscow region, 25% in Moscow. Further, the figures are significantly lower: 10% — Voronezh region, 5% each — St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk and Novosibirsk regions. Less than 5% — Samara, Yaroslavl, Irkutsk.
At the same time, the demand for remote medical examinations is growing. The document presents data for the last quarter of 2025 and 2024. Thus, from October to December 2025, more than 6 million examinations were conducted, which is more than three times higher than the figure for this period in 2024 (less than 2 million).
As Dmitry Gusev, a State Duma deputy and first deputy chairman of the control committee, noted in a conversation with Izvestia in August 2025, the vast majority of taxi drivers currently do not undergo medical examinations, embarking on flights with fake certificates that they purchase for money.
According to NIIAT estimates, in order to improve road safety, the number of remote inspections of drivers should be increased to at least 20 million per year. This is possible if you install in as many public places as possible, for example, at gas stations, software and hardware complexes that consist of a computer with a camera and microphone, certified measuring instruments (blood pressure monitor, thermometer, breathalyzer) and a driver identification system.
The NIIAT plans to send a proposal to expand the network of points to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the near future, with a request to take them into account in the implementation of the state strategy for improving road safety adopted in November 2025. The institute believes that this will create additional opportunities for drivers to check their health during stops and reduce the number of road accidents. For example, in December 2025 in Moscow, a truck driver lost consciousness at the wheel, a police officer climbed into the cabin of a heavy truck and stopped it, the press service of the Russian Interior Ministry reported.
In addition, NIIAT proposes to establish interdepartmental integration of information on pre—trip medical examinations with data from transport information systems, to ensure uniform requirements for the composition, format and transmission of such information, regardless of the form of their conduct (face-to-face or remote).
Izvestia sent requests to the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a request to assess the relevance of remote medical examinations.
How much does it cost to expand the network of telemedicine points
The initiative to expand the network of points for remote medical examinations could have a positive impact on improving the safety of passenger transportation, says Irina Zaripova, a member of the Public Council of the Russian Ministry of Transport.
— For many years, there has been a demand in the taxi industry to simplify the procedure for medical examinations of drivers, as well as to increase their accessibility. And one of the effective solutions that have already proven their practical applicability is remote telemedicine examinations," she said.
Ivan Litvinov, head of the Association of the Self-Employed in Russia, also believes that increasing the coverage of remote medical examinations could partially solve the problem of "impossible requirements in a taxi."
— Drivers are required to undergo daily medical and technical examinations, issue travel documents, purchase commercial CTP and OSGOP policies, and work on a car of a certain color. In fact, these are standards developed for large transport companies that were mechanically transferred to the taxi market, without taking into account its real segmentation and economic model, the expert believes.
Therefore, in his opinion, remote medical examinations look like a logical step: they require fewer medical personnel, potentially increasing the capacity and accessibility of the service.
— From the point of view of common sense, it is difficult to be against such technology. But the key question is at whose expense and at what tariffs it will be implemented," Ivan Litvinov noted.
On average, there are only 5-7 organizations authorized to conduct medical examinations for tens of thousands of drivers in the country, while the real need is hundreds of institutions in each city. According to him, the main difficulty of implementing remote inspection points is huge infrastructure investments.
— A specific example: for the city of Irkutsk with a population of just over 600 thousand people, it is necessary to purchase and maintain from 44 to 66 terminals daily. This is provided that 4-6 thousand drivers work on the line in Irkutsk per day. In addition, it is necessary to rent premises in which such terminals will be installed," Litvinov said.
According to his calculations, the total cost of purchasing, maintaining terminals and renting premises in that city alone ranges from 12.8 million to 19.1 million rubles per year. And such points are needed in other cities and small towns in the region.
— There are simply no such funds in regional budgets, and shifting these costs to drivers will inevitably lead to higher prices or a part of the market going into the shadows. Therefore, remote inspections can become part of the solution, but by themselves they do not eliminate the key problem: the gap between the requirements of legislation and the real economy of the taxi industry," the expert said.
Igor Morzharetto, a member of the presidium of the Public Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, also believes that expanding the network of remote medical examination points will cost a lot of money, while the impact on road safety will be small. There are no roads on a significant part, and in the near future, most likely, there will be no stable mobile Internet, so proposals to transfer real-time data from such inspections into a single database look doubtful, the expert believes.
Dmitry Gusev said that the Ministry of Transport and the State Duma had already discussed the option of installing special medical screening systems at gas stations and other places.
"It was decided that such a measure was ineffective because it was expensive and impossible to do," he told Izvestia.
According to the deputy, now the future does not belong to stationary remote inspection complexes, but to modern individual technical means — breathalyzers, blood pressure monitors, and so on. Their cost is low 1-1.5 thousand rubles, and data from them can be automatically transmitted to the taxi and cargo transportation aggregator. And he can already decide on the driver's admission to the flight and transfer the order to him.
What the industry thinks
The proposed measures regarding medical examinations can be implemented for bus passenger transportation, but they will be ineffective for taxi and cargo transportation, said Taras Koval, Vice President of the Association of Transport Experts and Specialists. And for small companies, even the existing requirements for medical examinations of drivers are virtually impossible. In these areas, measures to economically stimulate carriers to monitor the health of their drivers will have a more noticeable result, he believes.
— It is necessary to establish clear, understandable and, most importantly, implementable requirements for carriers, as well as monitor their implementation. For violations detected during inspections or in the case of incidents, violators should be severely punished in rubles. At the same time, there is no need to tell the business exactly how to perform them. Companies interested in the normal state of health of their drivers will decide for themselves how to achieve this," Taras Koval told Izvestia.
According to Anton Shaparin, Vice-president of the National Automobile Union, the largest number of drivers who undergo medical examinations are taxi drivers.
— And the medical examination procedure is meaningless, since everyone just buys these papers. The attempt to conduct a remote inspection fully corresponded to the trend towards simplifying these procedures," he explained to Izvestia. — But remote medical examinations are not being implemented as they should be. When the system was initially introduced, it was assumed that the remote inspection equipment would actually be located at almost every gas station. Now it is clear that there is little such technology.
The cargo carrier Avto-PEC noted that monitoring the driver's well—being is an extremely important task. Now, in this case, the driver is obliged to stop and call an ambulance, but often the reaction is delayed.
"And drivers could have the opportunity to regularly check their cardiovascular system, for example, when installing medical devices at gas stations and other transport stops," said Dmitry Ievlev, CEO of the company.
Maxim Taxi (which operates in more than 450 Russian cities) noted that the service mainly cooperates with self-employed drivers in private cars. They independently choose a place for a pre-trip inspection and go through the procedure.
—And given that the service operates mainly outside of capitals, in regions where population density is lower and where digitalization is penetrating more slowly, the proportion of remote examinations remains very low," the company said. — The development of a network of remote inspection points would significantly expand the inspection opportunities for drivers.
Maxim Taxi recalled that "it has been repeatedly said that the lack of infrastructure for pre- and post-flight inspections is a serious problem for the industry, and the requirement to comply with impossible conditions prevents the legalization of carriers."
This company also had questions about the source of financing for the expansion of the network of remote inspection points.
— The cost of one such terminal starts from 600 thousand rubles, to this amount you will need to add the cost of maintenance and the cost of medical services that will process the results remotely. And dozens of terminals are needed to cover even a small town," the company said.
They also believe that installing terminals as a commercial activity for profit in the regions is also unlikely to be advisable given the low population density. In addition, with an increase in the network of points, a personnel problem may arise — the results of the examination from the terminals are processed by doctors.
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