The online booking system for freight carriers, eCherha (eQueue), will be available at a total of 16 border crossing points with the EU and Moldova. A further 15 border crossings will be added to the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing point, which is already using the system. The decision was taken at a Government meeting today.
“The pilot project launched in December last year proved that we can eliminate physical queues, manage traffic flows and treat carriers with respect,” said Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development. “Since December, more than 75,000 trucks have left Ukraine using the electronic service at the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing point alone. Queuing at Yahodyn helped prevent a collapse during the days when Poland suspended grain imports. Trucks carrying other goods continued to move as scheduled.”
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, the project has several key benefits: for carriers, it is an obvious economic effect as they can plan their transportations and not spend money on days of downtime at the border. For the state, it is a tool for analysing traffic flows, streamlining transport and eliminating physical queues at the borders.
eCherha is a service that has no analogues in any other country in the European Union. It has been developed by the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development with the support of the USAID / UK aid Transparency and Accountability in Public Administration and Services (TAPAS) project and is being implemented jointly with the State Service for Transport Safety. It is a completely free public service.
eCherha will be in test mode until the end of May. The largest checkpoints will be added to the Yahodyn checkpoint: Rava-Ruska, Krakovets, Shehyni, Uzhhorod, Porubne, Tysa (Chop) – Záhony, Reni and others.
Registration of vehicles in the electronic queue will start on May 8. This can be done in the app or on the website https://echerha.gov.ua/en. From mid-May, trucks will only be able to cross the border if they register in the electronic queue.
The Ministry plans to extend the service to passenger transport.
The queue is just one part of a systematic effort to modernise and develop border crossings. Later this year, they will be transferred to the management of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development.