Road sign: restoring order with weight and size control will cost 7.6 billion
To restore order with weight and size control, 7.6 billion rubles will be required, the carriers estimated. According to the Accounting Chamber, half of the nearly 600 installed scales are not working. They are disabled due to sensor failures, roadway defects, and equipment malfunctions. The budget was missing about 26 billion rubles, the auditors said. The carriers are asking for criminal liability for officials for the substandard installation of such equipment. The Gruzavtotrans Association appealed to the State Duma.
Weight control points
During the period of the implementation of the federal project "System-wide measures for the development of road infrastructure", 579 automatic weight and size control points (APCS) designed for weighing trucks were placed on the country's roads. Half of them are not functioning and do not record violations, the Accounting Chamber reported following its audit. 34 out of 75 truck weighing points were disabled on federal highways, and 220 out of 503 APVGKS were disabled on regional roads, they found out.
The stations were shut down due to equipment failures. In 43.2% of cases, defects in the road surface were observed, which affected the accuracy of measurements. Measuring instruments broke down in 24% of cases.
— APVGK devices are demanding of the asphalt surface. If there are holes or cracks on it, then the measurement accuracy is distorted. Libra is starting to lie," Vladimir Matyagin, president of the Gruzavtotrans Association of trucking companies, told Izvestia. — The truck wheels on the pits jump and hit the sensors, which is why the load increases and the scales show overloading. As a result, carriers receive unjustified fines of up to 600 thousand rubles.
After inspections, APVGC owners are forced to turn off weighing points in order to avoid unjustified fines. The points have been in this state for months.
According to Gruzavtotrans, in order to repair the APVGC, it is necessary to dismantle the roadway, reinstall the sensors, and reconfigure the equipment. It takes about 25-30 million rubles per item. In addition, even non-working scales require maintenance, which costs up to 3.5 million rubles annually. As a result, almost 890 million rubles are spent every year on maintaining non-functioning weighing points, and another 7.6 billion a year may be required for their repair and launch, the association noted.
According to the Accounts Chamber, due to problems with the functioning of the APVGC, the amount of lost budget revenues at various levels is estimated at almost 26 billion rubles. Of this amount, 4.5 billion losses are attributed to federal settlements, and 21.5 billion to regional ones.
The Ministry of Transport noted that they are systematically working to resolve problematic issues related to the operation of the weight and size control system on the roads. Together with Rostransnadzor and representatives of business structures, a draft law has been prepared, which the government submitted to the State Duma in July 2025. The document will create a single automated system of weight and dimensional control on highways, which will combine all APVGCS into a single circuit and provide automated monitoring of the functioning of each point, the press service of the ministry told Izvestia.
They also added that Viktor Gulin, head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Transport, will focus on improving the efficiency of the weight and size control system.
Gruzavtotrans, in turn, sent a letter to the chairman of the Fair Russia faction, Sergei Mironov, with a proposal to work out the issue of toughening liability, including criminal liability for persons who install APVGK with violations. The Association asked the deputies to initiate changes to regulatory legal acts, because, in their opinion, the owners of the trails do not maintain the roadway at the APVGC in proper condition and ignore the requirements for installing equipment, the association's letter says.
Izvestia sent requests to Rostransnadzor and the State Duma.
Why do road scales show an advantage?
— Errors in the operation of the APVGC are fixed when working with the same loads, for example, with timber. One cube of wood weighs the same, and when loading 26 cubes, we always received about 27 tons," Fyodor Popov, a carrier from St. Petersburg, told Izvestia. — But in March of this year, with the same load, the scales suddenly began to show 52 tons, and I received more than 40 fines worth about 20 million rubles.
Moreover, they arrived two months later, when it was no longer possible to prove their case, the carrier added.
— Erroneous readings of the APVGC can reach 40%, — told Izvestia in the Department of traffic Safety of the GLT Group of Companies. — The reason for this is the late maintenance of technical devices and the poor quality of the components of these complexes. It is possible that the temperature regime and climatic factors have a negative impact on the equipment.
In addition, there are not enough qualified specialists in the regions who are able to service sensitive devices at the APVGC, the company added.
— Scales can work well only if all the manufacturer's requirements are met, — said the technical expert of the Gruzavtotrans Association. — 100 m before the frame and for 50 m after it, there should be no defects in the roadway, and the slope may not exceed 3%.
Strict requirements are also applied to asphalt laid at the APVGK. Its ability to resist wear is important, because the weighing is influenced by the rut. It should not exceed 10 mm. If the height difference is greater, the scale will give incorrect data. Even snow drifts and ice can affect measurements, the expert added.
GLT Group believes that for the normal operation of scales, it is necessary to carry out their regular technical control, not formally, on paper, but in reality. In addition, it is required to adjust, adjust, and verify the measuring instrument once every two to three months. However, these requirements are not always met, they added.
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