Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Belarus

The resolution provides for:

• Approval of the Rules for the Road Transport of Passengers and Freight;
• Amendments to the Regulations on the Procedure for Conducting Tendering for the Right to Operate Regular Passenger Road Transport;
• Supplementing the List of Consolidators of Exporter Applications for the Transportation of Products by Rail to China.

The main changes in the Rules for the carriage of passengers are:

• mandatory equipping buses carrying passengers with video recording equipment;
• equipping bus passenger seats with seat belts;
• eliminating the requirement for drivers to undergo training as part of the educational program;
• requiring road carriers to enter into an employment contract with drivers;
• establishing the types of travel documents and defining the procedure for their use, similar to those for urban electric transport;
• eliminating instances of changing the payment method for taxis and streamlining payment through an electronic information system;
• eliminating instances of seat reservation refusals and high prices for passenger taxi services when booking a trip without the use of information systems, mobile apps, or taxi dispatch services directly from the driver.

The main changes in the Rules for the transportation of goods are:

• supplying trucks with video recording equipment and satellite navigation equipment;
• supplying the truck body during timber transportation with special devices (stanchions, bunks, spikes, anti-skid combs, etc.) to prevent cargo shifting;
• equipping the truck and trailer (semi-trailer) with a canopy to protect the road and roadside from contamination;
• establishing the obligation for the driver to use a canopy to protect the road and roadside from contamination;
• establishing the obligation for the carrier to equip the truck body with a canopy to protect the road and roadside from contamination, and to ensure its proper use by the driver, and to ensure video recording of the performance of road freight transportation during the work shift, as well as the storage of the obtained data.

The main changes in the Regulations on the procedure for holding the competition are:

• addition of organizations to the tender committee whose competence includes matters of ensuring the safety of passenger transportation located within the territory of the relevant administrative-territorial unit of the customer (subject to the consent of said organizations);
• determination of the validity of a committee meeting if more than 50 percent of the committee members are present; determination of the procedure for reimbursement of expenses for organizing and conducting the tender;
• establishment of uniform criteria for evaluating tender proposals to exclude unscrupulous entities;
• elimination of the deadline for submitting clarifications to the tender committee, which will reduce the tender period;
• determination of the procedure for the applicant's actions after receiving notification of the tender winner or of the tender's invalidity;
• determination of the procedure for concluding an agreement for the organization of passenger road transportation on regular service in the event of failure to conclude such an agreement with the tender winner.

Most of the provisions of the resolution will come into force on April 1, 2026.