Russia’s central government has been the main promoter of the satellite-based GLONASS geolocation technology across the country, but local realities sometimes contradict Moscow’s spectacular nationwide plans.
Transportation companies operating in Saratov, in the Lower Volga area, came across this duality recently when attempting the introduction of ERA-GLONASS, a real-time satellite-based service for reporting and responding to traffic accidents.
To their great frustration, regional authorities found that the navigation equipment these carriers spent years buying and installing to insure compliance with federal mandates was in fact “inadequate.”
Six years ago President Putin mandated carriers across the regions to hook up to the GLONASS satellite positioning system; and while the regional companies began acting upon this decree soon thereafter, it was not until last summer that the federal government clearly specified what was “adequate” for use and what was not.
Beyond this problem, the Saratov region also lacks navigation and data control centers for drivers to exchange signals with. Two years after NIS, the Russian national navigation services provider, started inking deals with Russia’s regions to stipulate such infrastructure, Saratov drivers still cannot use whatever equipment they have.
As a result, with 98% of local public buses already outfitted with satellite transceivers and VDUs by last year – in full compliance with the Russian legislation requiring that all buses carrying more than eight passengers have such equipment – their owners are still unlikely to avoid penalties effective this week for failure to meet the terms.
Thus in addition to the up to 28,000 rubles ($930) already invested in the refurbishment of each bus, the law-abiding Saratov passenger carriers will now have to shell out another 2,000 to18,000 rubles ($60 to $600) to conform to the latest government specifications.
With the help of domestic and international software developers such as M2M Telematics and/or Intel, the ERA-GLONASS project should be up and running across Russia by March 1, 2014; and by early 2015 the federal government will still be expected to join with the regions in the $94 million effort to make the Russian roads safer and prevent an estimated 4,000 deaths a year.
Source: Novaya Gazeta
