Route business. How realistic is it to open a new direction?

Minibus as a business - making a profit

The profitability of the route business is beyond doubt. The number of minibus taxis is growing, there are already about 6-9 thousand of them in Moscow.
To launch a minibus, you need to assess the risks and level of investment.
Average revenue per car per shift is approximately $800. From here we subtract:
- $300 - maintenance and operation of the car;
- $100 - insurance, leasing;
- about 50 - contributions to the wage fund.
Taxes - per month from 20 to 200 $.

Without tax deductions, each car leaves $350 per day.

In modern cities and villages, the main transport has long been a minibus. This is an indispensable passenger carrier with a number of advantages. Despite the fact that benefit holders cannot freely travel in a minibus, this type of transport is still in great demand among the population. During rush hour it is very difficult to leave, all minibuses are crowded.
This type of business is very profitable. The number of minibuses is growing, and so is the need for them.

First steps - how to start a minibus?

The first thing you need to do is buy a car. There are several options here: buy a good, expensive minibus of a well-known brand (about 30 thousand dollars), or a used car in good condition (so that there are no losses due to repairs), or rent a car (with the right to buy) .

Documents
Next, to open such a business, you need to obtain special documentation and permits. This includes: payment of insurance, acquisition of a license to transport the vehicle. The license is valid for 5 years and is selected for a specific vehicle. A state license for transportation is issued by the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation in three types:

1. For a passenger car for commercial transportation.
2. For equipped motor transport for the purpose of transporting more than 8 people (except for the case when such activity is necessary for the own needs of a legal entity or individual, entrepreneur)
3. For transport with a carrying capacity > 3.5 tons for the purpose of transporting goods (except when such activity is necessary for the own needs of a legal entity or individual, entrepreneur)

A small enterprise of 3-5 cars brings in the minimum income. In this case, there is almost no opportunity to increase income, except perhaps to reduce maintenance and operating costs. With the increase in the fleet of cars, deductions per car for fixed expenses (for example, for the salary of a dispatcher, accountant) begin to gradually decrease.

Even with a successfully developed route, you will have to wait until people get used to it and recognize it. Only then is it possible to obtain stable high profits. However, even if the route is still new, you can still make good money during rush hour when the cars are completely packed with passengers.

Additional income

Launching minibuses also allows business owners to earn income for advertising (on boards, in the cabin). This is an additional 200-300 dollars per month, taking into account the cost of manufacturing materials.

Real hidden mechanisms of business

Usually the route business is built according to the following scheme. Some company is making a route for itself, it puts buses on it. The driver has his own minibus, and for cooperation with the office he gives half of the proceeds as a kind of tribute. With the remaining money, the car owner lives his life and repairs the car. The office, in turn, pays money to officials to open routes, UGADNU and the traffic police, in order to avoid any checks.
But, of course, the main interest of the office is completely different - cash circulation. The rest is all just minor points. Almost everywhere in Russia, places with a high cash turnover are places where shadow capital is cashed out.

It is very difficult to accurately calculate how many passengers were transported, even impossible. Not all cars are listed in the documents, so in reality there are almost always more buses on the routes. As a result, the question of strict, accurate financial reporting is open and unresolved; it simply does not exist.
The owners of route vehicles have income from them across their entire core business - only a small part of their turnover. The fact is that the mechanism itself is important here, since it allows minibuses to work as factories for laundering black money.

The financial activities of such offices go beyond the budget. They use registration as an individual entrepreneur, with simplified taxation (6%). The real profit is hidden, and it is impossible to take it into account from the outside. In fact, they pay even less.

Ultimately, bringing the route business out of the shadows would help to sharply increase budgetary security. City and municipal transport pays a lot of money to various funds (insurance, pensions), property taxes, profits, etc. The cost of tickets here includes 60% for the wage fund. And don’t forget about advanced training, employee skills, training, bonuses and the like. Things are not going well, you need to save money. Therefore, compared to minibuses, this is heaven and earth.

Residents of Russian cities have chosen transport - minibuses, the distinctive feature of which is speed and comfort. People willingly use it, and even the lack of travel benefits does not stop them. Along with the increase in demand, the popularity of the route business is also growing.

Multifaceted business

Among other types of urban transport, minibus taxis are among the leaders. Their number exceeds the others several times. In the Russian capital alone there are about several tens of thousands of minibuses. If this type of business was not profitable, it would not expand at such a rate. This is precisely the answer to the question for those who still doubt whether to open a route business.

In addition to the main income from collecting tolls, the owner of such a business can count on additional income from the following sources:

• Advertising in various forms is placed inside the minibus: posters, booklets, business cards. In this case, seats in the cabin are used from which it is more advantageously presented to passengers. While moving from one stop to another, a person can study information in detail and even write down contacts. The advertiser pays the owner of the minibus for posting his materials.
• The outer surface of the vehicle can also become a place for advertising. Advertising information is applied to a special film that covers the car. Such colorful, catchy information is not cheap for the advertiser, but it gives a high effect, which is beneficial for both parties.
• Custom transportation. These could be excursion routes, wedding celebrations and other events that require the movement of groups of people.

The main stages of organizing a route business

First of all, it is necessary to clarify all the nuances with the transport inspection in terms of the availability of the necessary documentation and compliance with the conditions. The future entrepreneur will be required to ensure that his car meets the technical requirements for passenger transport and can carry at least 8 people. You will also need the necessary qualifications: drivers, dispatchers and paramedics.

After paying the state fee for consideration of the application and issuance of the main document, the Russian Ministry of Transport issues a license, which is valid for 5 years. The amount of the fee depends on the region. It can vary depending on the size of the locality: from 350 to 500 dollars. A separate accounting card is maintained for each transport unit.

Preparation for issuing a license lasts up to 1 month. Doing business without a license will result in administrative penalties – a large fine.

A minibus taxi can be arranged as or.

To open a private minibus, you need to collect the following documents:

• charter;
• founders' agreement;
• state registration (certificate);
• certificate of registration;
• assigned codes by the statistical office;
• bank details;
• lease agreement for the use of a parking space;
• addresses – legal and physical;
• technical passports for cars;
• documents confirming the passage of technical inspection of vehicles;
• driver's license, work records of hired drivers.

1) Section "Autoline". Apart from him, I doubt that there are any private owners here.

2) 1. Minimum IP; 2. You must have at least 1 bus (any capacity 8+); 3. You must have a parking lot (documentary confirmation: property rights/agreement with the owner) and only then can you contact the local Ministry of Transport to: 1. obtain a license (you have to pay a certain price for it, in different regions - differently); 2.1 Obtain access to the route; 2.2 If the route is social, you will have to go through a competition (see competition documentation). Here it is also worth considering that it is necessary to create basic documentation (including a route passport; if you are going to open a new one or similar to an existing one, there is a whole technology for creating a route passport), you will have to involve at least one more person who can be appointed head of the database service, theoretically, if this is an individual entrepreneur, you yourself can act as both the owner and the head of services, incl. - DB. One way or another, you need a competent lawyer, or pay some money to the audit office. If you don’t want to pay money, study all the regulatory documentation on passenger transportation, especially THIS one.

3) Covered parking? For buses? Have you fallen from the moon? Specialized service? My friend, you are an idealist, not a realist. ​ In the periphery, everything is done right there on the knee, especially - BU. It is not advisable to create overruns if the bus is no longer under warranty; you can do everything yourself, having a mechanic with straight hands or a garter in a good auto repair shop for trucks, there is one in every city, especially 500+.

4) Starting with used MAZs, especially decommissioned ones, is very bold; it only looks like Neoplan in appearance. Drive a used vehicle from Europe only if you need to take a larger number of substations. Having 5 Lyama, you can take 3-4 quite good Sprinters, or 2 BV. You decide - what do you need?

5) If you have an individual entrepreneur with good reporting and turnover for the last 6 months, they will give it. With this situation, you can take out a loan from any state bank and arrange a lease in a commercial office. Then, after 3-5 years, it will be possible to take out a loan to refinance the outstanding lease and loan and buy another property. Otherwise, no chance. It's good that you have no illusions.

Regarding P.s. - the license will not be taken away, only those who sell the bread that feeds them, and if they sell, then this already hints at something.

Question - why do big buses only travel in certain cities? Is it much more difficult to organize the operation of BW than small things?

Why did they find strength in Perm and Vladimir - is it because of the relief? Hardly.

Why is it more difficult to organize? No offense, you seem to be an amateur in public transport. There is such a concept - market conditions. It dictates all the conditions for business. In our example - the type of substation, the volume of traffic, the cost of travel, etc. etc. You need to know a specific region, research the existing network, find out the demand, find out the internal connections of the region (village - hospital, home - work, zemkom - administration, etc.), in general - find out possible prospects and niches. It is also necessary to analyze the demographic situation (population growth/decline, number of elderly/working/student population).

My P.s. I sincerely advise you, to begin with, to comprehend your entire dream - how it fits in with reality. Desire alone is not enough; you need to be good at passenger transportation if you want to do everything legally. If you have thought about it, the second piece of advice is to draw up a business plan and then look for an investor.

My P.p.s. Well, you, of course, burned out, about the slightly large one - 500 or less. Slightly large - up to 150,000 maximum. If you have any more questions, write here, I might have missed something.

The minibus taxi business plan we bring to your attention sets itself and solves important social and economic problems. The main ones are: creating a profitable enterprise for transporting passengers in the city; meeting consumer demand for minibus services; making a profit. Today, this type of transport in large cities and suburban areas has become a serious competitor to bus transportation and electric transport. The main advantages of a minibus taxi are greater maneuverability of vehicles and high speed of delivery of passengers.

Project Summary

The minibus taxi business plan under consideration with calculations contains information and recommendations for opening an enterprise with a two-year cash turnover.

The project is financed by obtaining a commercial bank loan in the amount of 22.08 million rubles.

With the stated payback period (2 years), the investor will receive income in the amount of 2 million 97.6 thousand rubles.

Payment of interest on borrowed funds and their repayment begin from the first month of operation of the passenger transportation enterprise. This condition is adopted in this business plan in order to more easily understand the methodology for regulating cash flows and the logic for calculating the discounting flow.

The loan rate is 24% (when determining it, the possibility of a reduction should also be taken into account, as evidenced by the trend in banking policy).

The total amount of funds accrued to the lender for interest will be 2 million 97.6 thousand rubles.

The loan volume provides the project with a life cycle of two years.

Project payback period:

• 17 months – from the beginning of its implementation;
• 24 months – taking into account discounting.

Over the estimated life cycle, the total economic effect will be 6,642,521.6 rubles.

Market characteristics

Currently, there are a significant number of small companies operating in the passenger transportation market that do not fully feel the high intensity of competition. This is explained by the relative freedom of the services market in this industry, long payback periods for enterprises, psychological obstacles to starting a business, and complex administration.

As economic statistics show, bus transportation in Russia today only copes with the task by 80-85%. Only 60% of the country's residents regularly use bus transport services, and this value tends to constantly decrease.

In addition, cities are increasingly witnessing the process of absorption of small carriers by large road transport companies, which are constantly increasing their presence in the service market. In particular, the number of companies owning 1-2 vehicles is rapidly decreasing.

At the same time, over 80 thousand individual entrepreneurs in the country continue to engage in transportation. They have about 350 thousand buses at their disposal, the average daily mileage of each of which is from 250 to 350 kilometers.

According to experts, the total capacity of the domestic passenger transportation market is approximately 250 billion rubles, and this figure is expressed as a minimum. Given the ongoing urbanization of the country, there should be no cause for concern for carriers in the coming years.

It should also be taken into account that the development of road transport infrastructure lags far behind the pace of industrialization. This makes the use of personal transport increasingly costly and problematic. This fact makes the development of public transport practically no alternative option for satisfying passenger transportation services. Already, the annual increase in the total cost of services is 19.5-20%.

From the point of view of organizing a business in this industry, there are some significant obstacles. For example, since large transport companies are currently experiencing virtually no financial problems, it is becoming increasingly difficult for private carriers to gain access to state-subsidized transportation of passengers who benefit from the benefits established for them.

Thus, market analysis shows that, despite the significant number of market participants (and even gradually increasing), the volume of potential consumers of services is practically not growing. This is largely due to problems caused by the low level of transportation safety and high tariffs for passenger transportation.

Main stages of the project implementation

The project of organizing an enterprise for transportation by minibus taxis is planned to be implemented within the following stages:

Services provided and marketing

According to experts, only 1% of service consumers is enough for it to become socially significant. This conclusion allows us to consider the business of organizing passenger transportation by minibus taxis as promising, with high profitability.

Consequently, with proper marketing organization, the created enterprise can fully recoup the investment and bring profit to the founder.

The main activities to form consumer opinion, contributing to the growth of demand for minibus services, are:

• Placement of branded inscriptions on cars.
• Distribution of offers from the company in the media, television and radio.
• Ordering advertising materials in specialized publications.
• Creating your own website.
• Working on social networks.

Project administration

As already emphasized above, creating an enterprise for transporting passengers by minibus taxi requires significant effort and hassle associated with registering a business.

Since 2011, it has been mandatory in Russia to obtain a license to carry out passenger transportation on vehicles with a capacity of more than 8 people. To obtain it, the best solution would be to contact intermediary organizations.

Obtaining a license itself requires the founder of the enterprise to undergo a 10-day course at the transport inspectorate, during which the specifics of activities in this area and the existing requirements for the work of minibus taxi carriers are studied. Consideration of this issue may take about 1 month.

After completing the training, transport inspectorate employees inspect the enterprise’s infrastructure, its technical base and equipment, and the availability of documents confirming a medical examination.

Project administration includes the choice of taxation system and legal form of the enterprise. A license will be required if the number of vehicles used to provide services exceeds 20 vehicles.

In addition, if the number of cars is no more than 20, then, according to the Tax Code, an individual entrepreneur or enterprise can use the taxation system in the form of a single tax on imputed income (UTII).

To register an LLC, the founder must submit the following documents:

• A receipt confirming the payment of the obligatory amount of authorized capital to the bank.
• Agreement on the formation of an LLC.
• Application for registration.
• Notarized LLC charter and other documents, the list of which may be established by regional and municipal authorities.

To register an individual entrepreneur you will need:

• Receipt for payment of state duty.
• Application for registration.
• Copies of notarized personal documents.

Obtaining a seal for an individual entrepreneur is optional.

Recruitment

This business plan provides for the organization of an enterprise by hiring carriers with their own transport. To be hired, candidates must have and submit:

• Documents for registration as an individual entrepreneur.
• Personal passports.
• Package of documents for vehicles.
• Insurance and certificates from the traffic police about passing a technical inspection of cars.

The number of recruited employees is determined by the congestion of the route on which they will have to work.

Personnel selection is carried out on a competitive basis, with preference given to highly qualified specialists. The duration of the competition is 1 month.

The wage fund in this business plan is designed for 12 employees.

Project technical support

The passenger transportation enterprise being created includes the following elements of production infrastructure:

• Production facilities for vehicle maintenance and repair.
• Equipped parking.
• Room for the dispatch service.
• Telemetric equipment, computer and software for monitoring the movement of vehicles and services provided.
• Post for medical examination of drivers.

The selection of candidates for employment with personal cars should be made taking into account the growth of productivity, compliance with transportation safety requirements, and compliance with the requirements of the founder to ensure a positive reputation of the enterprise.

Financial plan

The created enterprise operates within the framework of the organizational and legal form of LLC. The beginning of the financial year is January. The main tax paid is income tax at a rate of 24%.

Project costs

Information on the costs of the created enterprise takes into account the need to overcome serious competition, therefore, when purchasing equipment, preference is given to high-quality equipment. The calculation was made with an expected payback period of 2 years.

Projected service delivery plan

The plan is calculated based on the following operating mode of the enterprise and types of services provided:

Standard operating hours: from 07:00 to 24:00 hours.

Peak hours: from 06:00 to 10:00 in the morning and from 16:00 to 20:00 in the evening.

The possibility of renting out a company's own car by its owner with employment as a driver has been taken into account. Drivers also work for a percentage of daily earnings.

As a rule, the daily revenue from a Gazelle minibus ranges from 1.5 to 3.5 thousand rubles. From this amount the vehicle owner is left with an average of 500 – 1,000 rubles.

The profit of the enterprise is determined in these conditions by the length of the routes on which taxi cars operate, the capacity of the cars and the amount of deductions to drivers.

In the end

An example of this business plan and the calculations performed show that the creation of a limited liability company that will engage in passenger transportation is a highly profitable business with high degrees of risks of various natures.

The most important condition for its successful functioning is the possibility of investing sufficiently large funds, which will be used to create and equip a vehicle fleet and service station. Opening an enterprise objectively requires high responsibility, perseverance and stress from the founder. He must have a sufficient level of industry knowledge, understand the nature of activities in the market for the provision of transport services and be able to take responsibility for the operation of the enterprise, the safety and preservation of human health.

Taking into account the projected sales growth rates, project implementation costs, cost of services provided, and the profitability of this business, we can say with a high degree of confidence that it has great prospects.