Rada proposes to adopt requirements for bus stations in Ukraine: what will change for passengers and carriers
Kyiv • UNN
The Verkhovna Rada has registered a draft law on new standards for bus stations in line with EU regulations. The document provides for mandatory arrangement of platforms, information boards and waiting areas.
The Verkhovna Rada has registered a draft law on amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Motor Vehicle Transport” to regulate the activities of bus stations No. 12228. The document provides for new requirements to the equipment and services of bus stations, UNN reports with reference to the card of the document.
Details
The authors of the document note that in the absence of air connections, road passenger transportation and bus stations, as an integral part of this transportation, play a key role in ensuring safe and high-quality movement of citizens. For certain settlements and logistics routes, bus service is generally the only possible and affordable form of public transportation.
Currently, according to the law, almost any building can be called a bus station and operate without providing any guarantees and services for passengers and carriers. However, most European countries clearly define what facilities can be considered bus stations: they are equipped with platforms for boarding and disembarking passengers, information boards about bus schedules, ticket offices, waiting areas for passengers, parking areas, and bus maintenance facilities.
The explanatory note to the document states that the insufficiently regulated activities of bus stations in Ukraine not only complicate integration processes, but also hinder the development of interstate cooperation in the field of bus transportation and make it impossible to guarantee passenger service standards at the level of EU standards.
The Draft Law proposes to amend the definition of a bus station, namely to define a bus station as a specially equipped building, a complex of buildings, structures intended for servicing passengers and vehicles engaged in bus passenger transportation, bus traffic management and including platforms for receiving, departing buses, boarding and disembarking passengers, vehicle parking areas, waiting rooms for passengers, ticket offices, as well as other facilities and services that ensure the functioning of bus stations.
The draft law also proposes to enshrine in the Law “On Road Transport” the authority of the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety to maintain a list of bus stations on its official website and to exclude provisions on the authority of the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety to issue certificates of certification of bus stations, maintain a list of certified bus stations and post the list on its official website.
Currently, there are 652 bus stations operating in Ukraine, with an estimated tax revenue of over UAH 5 billion. Transportation experts estimate that:
- legalization of ticket sales at bus stations will bring about UAH 400 million a year to the state budget;
- returning passenger traffic from the “shadow” to legal bus stations will allow bus stations to lease part of their premises, which means an additional 140 million hryvnias in taxes;
- payment of taxes on the amount paid by carriers for entering the bus station - at least UAH 76 million.
- other additional services for drivers and passengers - restrooms, luggage storage, rest rooms, medical examination for drivers, gas stations - at least UAH 250 million.
