Penza, 27 August 2014. PenzaNews. The struggle against illegal taxi drivers will be intensified in Penza, said Sergei Simonov, deputy chief of the city administration for entrepreneurship and service development, during a panel discussion on the problems of passenger taxi business in Penza that took place on Tuesday, August 26.

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The discussion involved the representatives of regional transportation agencies and companies.

According to Kirill Podgayny, deputy general director of “Taxi-Sura,” the main problem of Penza taxi enterprises is the competition with a large number of illegal taximen.

“A legal taximan has a passenger carrier government permit, which requires to check his car and health regularly and pay for it, which will guarantee the safety. Because of these points, legal firms have to keep a staff of mechanics, doctors, bookkeepers, etc – jobs for people and taxes for the government. An illegal taximan is somebody who sits down, gets the necessary software, contacts the dispatcher, and off he went. Since he doesn’t pay as much as a legal taximan, the price is different. So legal organizations find it hard to keep up in the market when there are law-breakers with prices 20-30 rubles lower,” Kirill Podgayny said.

He noted that most of the illegal taxi drivers are operating on behalf of firms registered as dispatcher service companies that are said to provide information services to the population.

“Their work is not regulated by the government, which lets them take the rides. Basically, these dispatcher service companies are glorified city payphones. Officially, they provide only information services, and they bear no responsibility for the quality of passenger transportation,” Kirill Podgayny explained.

As a reply, Vyacheslav Strekalov, chief of the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs, said the police are fighting against illegal carriers, but legal methods are often ineffective.

“Penalties imposed on illegal transporters amount to 500-1000 rubles. The drivers, who receive several times more than that per shift, are not afraid of losing these money. They pay and get back to work,” he said.

In the cause of the discussion, Anton Kupryushin, blogger and general director of “Avtomed,” voiced his own suggestion. According to him, the first step to achieve results would be to make legal measures more strict and punishing.

Summing up the results of the round table, Sergei Simonov announced the list of measures which would be implemented to solve the problem.

“First of all, we will verify the legitimacy of advertising the dispatcher service companies. They are everywhere in the city, and if any violations are registered, the companies will be held accountable. Second, we will submit a request to the prosecutor’s office to check the legal status of such organizations’ activities. Afterwards, we will work through a regional legislative initiative on administrative responsibility against the dispatcher service companies working with illegal taximen with large fines,” vice-mayor summed up.