MTS has deployed a high-precision geolocation infrastructure in Russia designed to support autonomous transport, including vehicles operated by Yandex. The network currently covers four major federal highways—M-11 Neva, M-4 Don, M-12 Vostok, and the Central Ring Road—along with five major cities: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, and Voronezh.
The project, which began in 2025, utilizes GNSS RTK technology to improve satellite navigation accuracy from the standard 5–15 meters down to 2–5 centimeters. This is achieved through a network of ground-based reference stations installed on MTS telecommunications equipment, which process signals from Glonass, GPS, Galileo, and Beidou satellites.
The system is currently operational on the M-4 highway up to Voronezh and the M-12 up to Kazan. MTS plans to expand the infrastructure to Novorossiysk on the M-4 by the end of 2026 and to Tyumen on the M-12 by 2028. By 2030, the company aims to cover all Russian cities with a population of over one million and key logistics hubs.
The network spans over 4,000 kilometers and operates under a service level agreement (SLA) to ensure reliability. According to MTS CEO Inessa Galaktionova, the system is a fully domestic solution. The company intends to scale the technology for other market participants and is exploring the possibility of entering international markets.
