Central Ring Road Becomes Russia's Smartest Highway
Russia's Central Ring Road (TsKAD) was built in stages, with the final section opening five years ago. Since then, motorists have made nearly 410 million trips along the highway. The route has become a key bypass for diverting transit traffic away from the Moscow Ring Road and the surrounding regional road network.
Until now, however, the highway's biggest weakness had been its digital "white spots" – stretches where mobile internet and voice coverage disappeared, leaving drivers with unreliable navigation and banking apps that stopped working. MTS, in partnership with the state-owned road operator Avtodor, has now completed a major telecommunications project that provides continuous high-quality mobile connectivity across the entire highway.
Digitalization Along the Route
The Central Ring Road stretches 340.6 kilometers, roughly the distance from Moscow to Ivanovo or Kostroma. Today, the entire route is covered by seamless LTE connectivity. Around 130 base stations operate along the highway. Over the past year, their number has increased by 17%, while the overall coverage area has expanded by 16%. Average mobile data speeds now reach 52 Mbps.
Motorists may need emergency assistance, real-time traffic updates, or simply a reliable connection for a business call while traveling. They can now expect stable performance from emergency calling systems, voice services, navigation platforms, and mobile banking applications. Meanwhile, residents of nearby communities and industrial facilities are also benefiting from improved connectivity after spending years in the highway's digital shadow.
Connecting Transport Corridors
In 2021, MTS and Avtodor began rolling out mobile infrastructure as newly completed sections of the Central Ring Road opened to traffic. In August 2024, operators completed continuous 4G (LTE) coverage along the 810-kilometer M-12 Vostok highway between Moscow and Kazan by deploying infrastructure on 175 towers.
In September 2024, Russia's Ministry of Transport officially expanded the experimental legal framework governing autonomous vehicles. The program initially covered the M-11 Neva highway before being extended to the Central Ring Road and the M-12. Autonomous freight trucks connected to the ERA-GLONASS system have now accumulated more than 19 million kilometers of driving. Every day, 41 autonomous trucks operate on the Central Ring Road, making reliable mobile connectivity a prerequisite for their safe integration into mixed traffic. This year, the highway was also added to the federal government's priority list of roads requiring virtually continuous mobile coverage, formally recognizing its role as Russia's leading digitally connected transport corridor.
Always Connected
Reliable LTE connectivity forms the foundation of an Intelligent Transportation System. The network now provides the digital infrastructure needed to deploy traffic enforcement cameras, road condition sensors, predictive accident warning systems, and real-time freight traffic monitoring.
Further work on the Central Ring Road will focus on introducing network redundancy to prevent service interruptions during peak traffic periods, strengthening interoperability between mobile operators, and ensuring secure data exchange with roadside and traffic management servers. Autonomous vehicles, for example, require far more than network access alone. They also depend on high-precision positioning, digital maps, and low-latency data exchange with traffic monitoring centers.
"Working closely with Russia's four nationwide mobile operators, we are ensuring that motorists have reliable communications services along the entire length of our federal highways. Following the completion of connectivity projects on the M-11 Neva and the M-12 Vostok highways (Moscow – Kazan and Dyurtyuli – Achit sections), completed in 2021 and 2024 respectively, we have now finished work on the Central Ring Road as well. Together, these projects have created a continuous corridor of reliable high-speed cellular coverage extending for more than 1,500 kilometers," said Konstantin Makiev, Deputy Chairman of the Management Board for Operator Activities and User Service Development at Avtodor.
Under Russia's Ministry of Digital Development requirements, mobile operators must provide LTE coverage across 80% of federal highways by the end of 2026, up from the current 70%. By 2031, that figure is expected to reach 99.9% wherever supporting infrastructure is available. The Central Ring Road has been assigned the same individual coverage target of 99.9%.
The telecommunications project on the Central Ring Road could become the blueprint for digitalizing Russia's broader road network through the deployment of telematics, intelligent video surveillance, and online infrastructure monitoring systems.
