Fare evasion fines to grow

The Ministry of Transport and Communication wants fines for fare evasion on public transport to be raised.

As BelaPAN learnt from the ministry, regulatory acts to raise fines for fare dodging and strengthen administrative sanctions for violations in the passenger transportation sector will be prepared this year. It is planned to give the Transport Inspection more power so that it can open and consider cases relating to violations in the public transport sector.

The ministry thinks a suitable mechanism of increasing the rate of return of socially important urban and suburban public transport services was not found. Public transport services still remain lossmaking (the profitability of bus services is minus 2.1%, trolleybus services – minus 17.6%, tram services – minus 13.2%).

According to the ministry, public transport fares were increased by half in Minsk and 30% in regions. Suburban bus fares were raised by 18%, which allowed decreasing the amount of unreimbursed expenses. The previous price increase lags behinds the Ministry of Economy's raid map of the gradual growth of public transport fares (by 66.7% in Minsk and 55.5% in regions).

The lag in interregional, regional and commuter passenger rail transport is even larger.

The transport ministry notes that a mechanism of the partial compensation for losses in socially important passenger rail transport services from the state's funds has not been invented yet, which hinders the development of passenger transport services and does not provide conditions for increasing their efficiency.

The Ministry of Transport made several proposals to amend the Budget Code so that expenses for passenger rail transport services inside the country could be funded from the state's budget, but the Ministry of Finance declined the proposals.

Photo: bymedia.net