Road Transport Regulation: The Law That Governs the Sector
The road transport sphere in Georgia is defined by one governable legal corpus — the Georgian Law on Road Transport. This page describes precisely that law as the common framework governing the sector: management, permits, requirements for vehicles and drivers, and the safety of carriage. Separate acts exist for the general governance of the transport sphere and for traffic rules, but the analysis below rests on the norms of the Road Transport Law itself.
The first article of the law defines the sphere's basic concepts. Road transport is a part of the transport system and covers road transportation and related activity. An auto transport vehicle is a motor vehicle or a coupled combination of vehicles used on the road for the carriage of freight and passengers. A carrier is an entrepreneur who owns an auto transport vehicle and performs carriage on the basis of an appropriate permit. A bus is a vehicle with more than 8 seats besides the driver's seat; an M1 category vehicle has no more than 8 seats besides the driver's; a minivan is an M1 vehicle with more than 5 seats.
The Management System: Ministry, Agency, Municipality
The law defines the tasks of road transport: meeting the demands of the population and the national economy for carriage and transport services, rendering transport-forwarding and other services to natural and legal persons, protecting cargo during carriage, and orienting carriage toward the principle of sustainable mobility.
The management structure is established by the law: unified state policy in the sphere is developed and implemented by the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia; state supervision and control over compliance with legislative and sub-legislative acts is exercised by the Land Transport Agency. Regular passenger carriage within a municipality's administrative boundaries is organized and managed by the respective municipality, while taxi carriage in the capital or another self-governing city is organized and managed by the mayor's structural unit or a legal entity founded by that municipality. The law also singles out the concept of a classic car — a motor vehicle whose age exceeds 30 years.
Types of Permit-Subject Activity
A dedicated article establishes five types of activity subject to permits. A permit is a right granted to a person, for a defined period, by administrative-legal act of the Land Transport Agency or a municipality's authorized organ — to conduct the activity under the conditions established by law:
- regular passenger carriage within a municipality's administrative boundaries;
- carriage by light vehicle — taxi (M1 category) — in the capital or another self-governing city;
- road passenger carriage;
- international road freight transport;
- one-time international road freight transport from the territory of Georgia performed by a foreign carrier, above the established quota.
An important guarantee is built in here: refusal to issue a permit on the grounds of the limited number of permits to be issued is inadmissible, except in two cases — municipal regular carriage permits and taxi permits. In the context of international freight the law also defines the quota — a limited number of transport operations established by an international organization or by agreement — and the authorization blank, which grants a foreign carrier the right to perform operations on the territory of Georgia or to move in transit.
Routes and Types of Carriage
The law distinguishes types of carriage by route. Regular passenger carriage is the multiple carriage of passengers by bus and/or minivan on a predefined route, according to a set schedule; the requirements for it are determined by a normative act of the Government, and every such requirement must serve the protection of human life, health, the environment, property rights and other fundamental interests, or ensure an appropriate quality of service.
Regular carriage within a municipality's boundaries runs along a route determined by the municipality's representative organ; the law also covers the case where, due to road-infrastructure peculiarities or relief, the route crosses another municipality's border while starting and ending in the same municipality. Internal regular carriage covers the whole territory of Georgia, while international carriage is performed between two points located in different countries — including transit.
Technical and Qualification Requirements
The article on vehicle requirements provides that vehicles not registered in the established manner are not admitted to operation, and that a vehicle must satisfy both the permit conditions and the rules and requirements established by Georgian legislation. Technical quality is also touched by the type-approval institute — a procedure by which an authorized organ establishes, on the basis of appropriate inspection, that the type of a vehicle, device, part, system or component conforms to the UN 1958 Agreement.
On the driver's side, the right to drive mechanical vehicles is granted to a person with appropriate qualification and health condition: qualification requirements are determined in the manner established by Georgian legislation, while health requirements and the check procedure are set by a joint order of the ministers of health and of internal affairs.
Dangerous and Specific Cargo, Safety
The article on traffic safety allocates responsibility: carriers, owners of vehicles and drivers are obliged to ensure traffic safety within their competences when carrying passengers and freight on roads. The conditions and procedure for the carriage of specific freight — dangerous, oversized, overweight, perishable and other — are determined in the manner established by Georgian legislation.
The definition of dangerous goods follows international standards: substances and products classified by international norms into 9 classes by type of danger, whose international road carriage is prohibited or permitted only under certain conditions in accordance with the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR). If your business involves such cargo, knowing this classification and complying with the relevant conditions is decisive.
How Our Lawyers Can Help
Legally structuring a transport business means identifying the correct permit type, knowing the municipal and agency rules, understanding the restrictions tied to routes and quotas, and managing authorization blanks in international transport. Our team will assist you in the permit-acquisition procedure, in assessing compliance with effective requirements, and in dealings with supervisory organs.
Contact us through Legal.ge — we will assess the legal basis of your transport activity and point you to the precise permit landscape established by the Road Transport Law.