Volodymyr Kistion: Government focuses on both directions – road repairing activities and maintaining their quality

With the support of the European Union, the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety purchased 26 new mobile dimensioning and weighing scales complying with European standards. Today Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Kistion presented those systems on behalf of the Government of Ukraine.

Within the framework of the assistance provided to the Ukrainian Government sponsored by the European Commission, there will be purchased another 52 modern mobile weighting scales by the end of 2017.

"Construction of new high-quality roads is the priority of the Government's work in the current and subsequent years. We all have the opportunity to observe how the Ukrainian roads have changed over the past six months. Roads in Ukraine have not been subjected to major repairs for over 20 years," said Volodymyr Kistion in his address.

According to him, by the end of year over 2 thousand kilometers of Ukrainian roads will be repaired, being a record in the history of Ukrainian independence. "It's not even about the scale of repairs. Speedways are obtaining high quality, as the philosophy of the repair activity has been changed – the activity includes not just patching pits and holes, but in fact the road is constructed from scratch thereby laying the foundation for high-quality roads for the years to come," the Vice Prime Minister underlined.

The annual losses incurred to the road infrastructure as a result of the destruction of roads caused by the traffic of heavy vehicles, amount to over UAH 2 billion. Therefore, the Government is focusing not just on major overhaul of roads, but on maintaining road infrastructure in the future.

"In order to prevent deformation of the coating in two to three years of use of new roads there should be clear control over the traffic of excessively loaded cars. This is the globally accepted norm when all carriers honestly adhere to the established allowable standards for the loading of vehicles", urged Volodymyr Kistion.

He added that the provision of the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety with modern mobile weighing scales will improve the control of safety on Ukrainian roads. "Control itself is not an end in itself. Road repair activities are made at the expense of taxpayers. Therefore, to avoid the situation when we build with one hand, and destroy with another, there must be implemented an effective control over the traffic of excessively loaded vehicles", summed up the Vice Prime Minister.