The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) are ready to provide a targeted loan in the amount of EUR 900 million to Ukraine to develop the road sector, acting Head of the State Automobile Roads Agency of Ukraine (Ukravtodor) Slawomir Nowak has said. “I have already held negotiations with the EBRD and the EIB. A new credit line will be opened for Ukraine in the amount of EUR 900 million,” he said.
According to Nowak, the negotiations were very difficult, but trust in the state and its managers ultimately allowed for a positive solution.
“Within the framework of this new credit line, we will also offer to finance the Weight-in-Motion system at the next stage,” the acting chief of Ukravtodor said.
Nowak also said that he recommended that Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Krykliy eararks funds from the Road Fund allocated for road safety to the installation of the Weight-in-Motion (WiM) system.
As reported, Ukravtodor launched in test mode the first two WiM points on the Kyiv-Chop highway.
On September 11, the Rada adopted at second reading a bill allowing automatic recording of violations during weight monitoring on roads.
Weight-in-Motion (WiM) systems will fulfill a function of pre-selection for inspectors of the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety until a law allowing automatic weight and weight control on roads is passed.
Ukravtodor previously planned in October to launch the first six WiM points at the entrances to Kyiv. In general, it is planned to install up to 100 WiM points.
The State Automobile Roads Agency of Ukraine, also known as Ukravtodor, plans to introduce the toll system for large trucks for using Ukrainian roads.
“It was my initiative to implement intelligent transport systems in Ukraine. In addition to Weight-in-Motion (WiM), this includes recording speeding and traffic analysis systems using cameras. The fourth part of the global intellectual transport system of Ukraine is tolling, that is, collecting payments from heavy vehicles for traveling on Ukrainian roads,” acting Head of Ukravtodor Slawomir Nowak said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He believes that the introduction of the toll will be a serious legislative change for Ukraine, which will significantly improve the condition of roads in the country.
“We need to pass a law that will regulate this toll. We urgently need to introduce an additional source for the Road Fund. There is a European principle: trucks, especially those that earn on transportation, must pay more for traveling on roads,” the acting head of the agency said.
According to Nowak, the volumes of road destruction due to overloaded transport are huge.
“The problem with overloaded tracks in Ukraine is very, very big,” he said.
Thanks to the start of the operation of the Road Fund 3,800 kilometers of roads of both national and local importance have been restored, and 2018 has become a record-breaking year in terms of roads repaired in Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine has said.
“Also, we have managed to implement several large-scale infrastructure projects. Among them are the launch of the Beskydsky tunnel, the start of supplies of General Electric locomotives [to Ukraine], and the launch of an express train to the Boryspil airport,” Poroshenko wrote on his page on Facebook on December 30.
Summing up, he said that “these successes are an excellent impetus for not slowing down the pace of the development of the transport infrastructure in 2019, too.”
