St. Petersburg Taxis Demand Equal Rights with Federal Competitor

St. Petersburg parliamentarians plan to appeal to federal authorities with an initiative to add local taxi services to the 'white list,' which would allow them to operate during mobile internet outages.

Apr 20, 2026

A meeting of St. Petersburg«s transport commission discusses taxi service inclusion in the federal white list.
Source:
Aleksandr Oshchepkov / NGS.RU

The Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg intends to send an appeal to the Ministry of Digital Development, the State Duma, and the Federal Antimonopoly Service with a request to include city taxi services in a special list. The decision was made on February 2 at a meeting of the transport commission of the St. Petersburg parliament. The list is proposed to include three services: «Taksovichkof,» «Citimobil,» and «Taxi 068.» The last one is an operator of social taxi for privileged categories of citizens.

The «white list» is a list of internet resources that continue to work even during temporary mobile internet outages, introduced to counter drones. Users can access them without additional identification. The list already includes many government websites, popular services, marketplaces, banks, and some media. At the end of 2025, for example, «Russian Post,» taxi «Maxim,» and 2GIS were added to it.

Local taxi aggregators have faced a significant drop in demand due to their absence from this list. According to their data, in January 2026 compared to the same period last year:

For «Taksovichkof,» the number of placed orders fell by 12%, completed orders by 13%.
For «Citimobil,» order placement decreased by 55%, completion by 65%.

The service «Taxi 068,» which serves over 10,000 beneficiaries monthly, including veterans and people with disabilities, also loses customers during communication failures.

Deputies of the Legislative Assembly note that the current situation creates unequal competition conditions, since the service «Yandex,» which holds a dominant position in the market, is already in the «white list.» «We are playing on the side of a monopoly company that essentially controls 90% of the market,» said deputy Dmitry Pavlov. Colleagues supported the idea of the appeal, emphasizing the importance of preserving choice for consumers and drivers.

The State Duma deputy Sergey Boyarsky, who was present at the meeting, promised to consider the appeal in the relevant committee but expressed a cautious position. He explained that the list cannot be endless, otherwise the point of internet outages for security is lost. «I want to look at the numbers and some more arguments,» said Boyarsky. He also noted that he considers it appropriate to include social taxi, but for other companies, strong arguments are needed since the outages are short-term.