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Agreement on the International Carriage of Passengers by Road by means of Occasional Coachand Bus Services (ASOR)
Final Act - Declarations by the Contracting Parties - Declaration by the European Economic
Community
Agreement on the International Carriage of Passengers by Road by means of Occasional Coach and
Bus Services (ASOR)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,THE FEDERAL PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF AUSTRIA,
THE GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF FINLAND,THE GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY,
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC,THE GOVERNMENT OF SWEDEN,
THE SWISS FEDERAL COUNCIL,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY,DESIRING to promote the development of international transport and especially to facilitate theorganization and operation thereof;
WHEREAS some international carriage of passengers by road by means of occasional coach and bus
services are liberalized as far as the European Economic Community is concerned by Council
Regulation No 117/66/EEC of 28 July 1966 on the introduction of common rules for the international
carriage of passengers by coach and bus [1] and by Regulation (EEC) No 1016/68 of the Commissionof 9 July 1968 prescribing the model control documents referred to in Articles 6 and 9 of Council
Regulation No 117/66/EEC [2];[1] OJ No 147, 9.8.1966, p. 2688/66.
[2] OJ No L 173, 22.7.1968, p. 8.
THE FEDERAL PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF AUSTRIA:
WHEREAS, in addition, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) adopted on 16
December 1969 resolution No 20 concerning the formulation of general rules for international coachand bus transport [3] which also concerns the liberalization of some international carriage of passengers
by road by means of occasional coach and bus services;[3] Volume of ECMT resolutions, 1969, p. 67 ; volume of ECMT resolutions, 1971, p. 133.
WHEREAS it is desirable to provide for harmonized liberalization measures for occasional
international services for passengers by road and to simplify inspection procedures by introducing asingle document;
WHEREAS it is desirable to assign some administrative tasks concerned with the Agreement to theSecretariat of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport;
HAVE DECIDED to establish uniform rules for the international carriage of passengers by road bymeans of occasional coach and bus services,
AND TO THIS END have designated as their Plenipotentiaries:
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES:

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M. Herman DE CROO, Ministre des Communications du Royaume de Belgique, Président en exercice
du Conseil des Communautés européennes;
M.G. CONTOGEORGIS, Membre de la Commission des Communautés européennes
M. Karl LAUSECKER, Ministre fédéral des transports;
THE GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN:
Don Emilio PAN DE SORALUCE, Ambassadeur;
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF FINLAND:
M. Jarmo WAHLSTROEM, Ministre des Transports;
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY:
M. Erik RIBU, Secrétaire général au Ministère des Transports et Communications;
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC:
M. José Carlos VIANA BAPTISTA, Ministre du Logement, des Travaux publics et des Transports;
THE GOVERNMENT OF SWEDEN:
M. Nils Erik BRAMSVIK, Sous-secrétaire d'Etat au Ministére des Communications;
THE SWISS FEDERAL COUNCIL:
M. Léon SCHLUMPF, Conseiller fédéral, Chef du département fédéral des Transports, desCommunications et de l'Energie;
FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY:
Dr Mustafa A. AYSAN, Ministre des Transports;
WHO, having exchanged their Full Powers, found in good and due form,
HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS:SECTION I Scope and definitions
Article 1
1. This Agreement shall apply:(a) to the international carriage of passengers by road by means of occasional services effected:- between the territories of two Contracting Parties, or- starting and finishing in the territory of the same Contracting Party,
and, should the need arise during such services, in transit through the territory of another Contracting
Party or through the territory of a non-contracting State, and- using vehicles registered in the territory of a Contracting Party which by virtue of theirconstruction and their equipment, are suitable for carrying more than nine persons, including
the driver, and are intended for that purpose;(b) to unladen journeys of the vehicles concerned with these services.
2. For the purpose of this Agreement, international services are understood to be services which crossthe territory of at least two Contracting Parties.

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3. For the purposes of this Agreement, the term "territory of a Contracting Party" covers, as far as theEuropean Economic Community is concerned, those territories where the Treaty establishing that
Community is applied and under the conditions laid down in that Treaty.
Article 2
1. For the purposes of this Agreement, occasional services shall mean services falling neither within thedefinition of a regular service in Article 3 nor within the definition of a shuttle service in Article 4.
They include:(a) closed-door tours, that is to say services whereby the same vehicle is used to carry the same groupof passengers throughout the journey and to bring them back to the place of departure;(b) services which make the outward journey laden and the return journey unladen;(c) all other services.
2. Save for exemptions authorized by the competent authorities of the Contracting Party concerned, inthe course of occasional services no passenger may be taken up or set down during the journey. Suchservices may be operated with some degree of frequency without thereby ceasing to be occasional
services.
Article 3
1. For the purposes of this Agreement regular services shall mean services which provide for the
carriage of passengers according to a specified frequency and along specified routes, whereby
passengers may be taken up or set down at predetermined stopping points. Regular services can be
subject to the obligation to respect previously established timetables and tariffs.
2. For the purposes of this Agreement, services, by whomsoever organized, which provide for the
carriage of specified categories of passengers to the exclusion of other passengers, in so far as suchservices are operated under the conditions set out in paragraph 1, shall also be considered to be regularservices. Such services, in particular those providing for the carriage of workers to and from their placeof work or of school children to and from school, are called "special regular services".
3. The fact that a service may be varied according to the needs of those concerned shall not affect its
classification as a regular service.
Article 4
1. For the purposes of this Agreement, shuttle services shall mean services whereby, by means ofrepeated outward and return journeys, previously formed groups of passengers are carried from a single
place of departure to a single destination. Each group, consisting of the passengers who made theoutward journey, shall be carried back to the place of departure on a later journey.
Place of departure and destination shall mean respectively the place where the journey begins and theplace where the journey ends, together with, in each case, the surrounding locality.

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42. In the course of shuttle services, no passenger may be taken up or set down during the journey.
3. The first return journey and the last outward journey in a series of shuttles shall be made unladen.
4. However, the classification of a transport operation as a shuttle service shall not be affected by thefact that, with the agreement of the competent authorities in the Contracting Party or Parties concerned:- passengers, notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 1, make the return journey with anothergroup,- passengers, notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 2, are taken up or set down along the way,
- the first outward journey and the last return journey of the series of shuttles are, notwithstanding theprovisions of paragraph 3, made unladen.
SECTION II Liberalization measures
Article 5
1. The occasional services referred to in Article 2 (1) (a) and (b) shall be exempted from the need forany transport authorization on the territory of any Contracting Party other than that in which the vehicle
is registered.
2. The occasional services referred to in Article 2 (1) (c) shall be exempted from the need for any
transport authorization on the territory of any Contracting Party other than that in which the vehicle isregistered where they are characterized by the following:- the outward journey is made unladen and all the passengers are taken up in the same place, and- the passengers:(a)-constitute groups, in the territory of a non-Contracting Party or a Contracting Party other than that inwhich the vehicle is registered or that where the passengers are taken up, formed under contracts ofcarriage made before their arrival in the territory of the latter Contracting Party, and- are carried in the territory of the Contracting Party in which the vehicle is registered ; or(b)-have been previously brought, by the same carrier in the circumstances provided for under Article 2(1) (b), into the territory of the Contracting Party where they are taken up again and carried into theterritory of the Contracting Party in which the vehicle is registered ; or(c)
- have been invited to travel into the territory of another Contracting Party, the cost of transport being
borne by the person issuing the invitation. Such passengers must constitute a homogeneous group,
which has not been formed solely with a view to undertaking that particular journey and which isbrought into the territory of the Contracting Party where the vehicle is registered.
3. In so far as the conditions laid down in paragraph 2 are not satisfied, in the case of occasional

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services referred to in Article 2 (1) (c), such services may be made subject to a transport authorizationin the territory of the Contracting Party concerned.
SECTION III Control document
Article 6
Carriers operating occasional services within the meaning of this Agreement shall, whenever required
to do so by any authorized inspecting officer, produce a passenger waybill which forms part of acontrol document issued by the competent authorities in the Contracting Party where the vehicle isregistered or by any duly authorized agency. This control document shall replace the existing control
documents.
Article 7
1. The control document referred to in Article 6 shall consist of detachable passenger waybills in
duplicate in books of 25. The control document shall conform to the model shown in the Annex to thisAgreement. This Annex shall form an integral part of the Agreement.
2. Each book and its component passenger waybills shall bear a number. The passenger waybills shallalso be numbered consecutively, running from 1 to 25.
3. The wording on the cover of the book and that on the passenger waybills shall be printed in theofficial language or several official languages of the Member State of the European Economic
Community or of any other Contracting Party in which the vehicle used is registered.
Article 8
1. The book referred to in Article 7 shall be made out in the name of the carrier ; it shall not betransferable.
2. The top copy of the passenger waybill shall be kept on the vehicle throughout the journey to which it
refers.
3. The carrier shall be responsible for seeing that passenger waybills are duly and correctly completed.
Article 9
1. The passenger waybill shall be completed in duplicate by the carrier for each journey before the startof the journey.
2. For the purpose of providing the names of passengers, the carrier may use a list already completed ona separate sheet, which shall be firmly stuck in the place provided for it under item No 6 in thepassenger waybill. The carrier’s stamp or, where appropriate, the carrier’s signature or that of the driverof the vehicle shall be placed across both the list and the passenger waybill.
3. For the services involving an outward journey unladen referred to in Article 5 (2) of this Agreement,
the list of passengers may be completed as provided in paragraph 2 at the time when the passengers aretaken up.

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Article 10
The competent authorities in two or more Contracting Parties may agree bilaterally or multilaterallythat the list of passengers under item No 6 of the passenger waybill need not be drawn up. In that case,the number of passengers must be shown.
Article 11
1. A model with stiff green covers and containing the text of the model cover page recto verso of thecontrol document shown in the Annex to this Agreement in each official language of all the Contracting
Parties must be kept on the vehicle.
2. The following shall be printed on the front cover of the model in capital letters and in the official
language or several official languages of the State in which the vehicle used is registered:"Text of the model control document in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek,
Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish".
3. This model shall be produced whenever required by any authorized inspecting officer.
Article 12
Notwithstanding the provisions of Article 6, control documents used for occasional services before theentry into force of this Agreement may be used for two years after the entry into force of the said
Agreement pursuant to Article 18 (2).
SECTION IV General and final provisions
Article 13
1. The competent authorities in the Contracting Parties shall adopt the measures required to implement
this Agreement.
Such measures shall cover, in particular:- the organization, the procedure and the means of control, and penalties for any breach,- the period of validity of the book,- the processing and filing of the top copy and duplicate of passenger waybills,- the designation of the competent authorities referred to in Articles 2, 6, 10, and 14, as well as thebodies referred to in Article 6,- the stamping, if required, of the passenger waybill by authorized inspecting officers.

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2. The measures taken under paragraph 1 shall be communicated to the Secretariat of the European
Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT), which shall inform the other Contracting Parties
thereof.
Article 14
1. The competent authorities in the Contracting Parties shall ensure that the carriers respect theprovisions of this Agreement.
2. They shall inform each other in accordance with their respective national legislation of the offences
committed in their territory by a carrier established on the territory of another Contracting Party and,
where necessary, of the penalty imposed.
Article 15
The provisions of Articles 5 and 6 shall not be applied to the extent that Agreements or otherarrangements in force or to be concluded between two or more Contracting Parties provide for more
liberal treatment. The terms "Agreements or other arrangements in force between two or more
Contracting Parties" shall cover, as far as the European Economic Community is concerned, theAgreements and other arrangements which have been concluded by the Member States of that
Community.
Article 16
1. If the operation of this Agreement or the measures taken under Article 13 should make it necessary,each Contracting Party can request that a meeting of the parties to the Agreement be convened for the
purpose of jointly examining the problems encountered and any solutions proposed.
2. The chairmanship of the meetings referred to in paragraph 1 shall be held alternately by theEuropean Economic Community and another Contracting Party nominated for this purpose.
3. Requests for convening a meeting, referred to in paragraph 1, shall be addressed to the ECMTSecretariat.
4. The ECMT Secretariat shall immediately inform the other Contracting Parties of requests referred toin paragraph 1 ; unless such request for convening a meeting is withdrawn within four weeks, the
ECMT Secretariat, when this period is over, shall fix the date and place of the meeting in agreementwith the chairman in office since the last plenary meeting and shall convene this meeting at the earliest
possible date.
Article 17
1. When signing this Agreement each Contracting Party may declare, by notification to the other
Contracting Parties through the ECMT Secretariat, that it does not consider itself bound by Article 5 (2)(b) of the Agreement. In this case the other Contracting Parties shall not be bound by Article 5 (2) (b),with respect to the Contracting Party that has entered such a reservation.
2. The declaration referred to in paragraph 1 may be withdrawn at any time by a notification addressedto the other Contracting Parties through the ECMT Secretariat.

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Article 18
1. This Agreement shall be approved or ratified by the Contracting Parties in accordance with their own
procedures. The instruments of approval or ratification shall be deposited by the Contracting Parties
with the Secretariat of the ECMT.
2. This Agreement shall enter into force, when five Contracting Parties including the European
Economic Community have approved or ratified it, on the first day of the third month following thedate on which the fifth instrument of approval or ratification is deposited.
3. This Agreement shall enter into force, for each Contracting Party which approves or ratifies it after
the entry into force provided for under paragraph 2, on the first day of the third month following thedate on which the Contracting Party concerned has deposited its instrument of approval or ratification
with the ECMT Secretariat.
4. The provisions of Sections II and III of this Agreement shall apply seven months after the entry into
force of the Agreement as specified in paragraphs 2 and 3 respectively.
Article 19
1. After this Agreement has been in force for three years, under the conditions set out in Article 18 (2),any Contracting Party may, by means of a notification addressed to the ECMT Secretariat, request theconvening of a conference for the purpose of revising the Agreement. The Secretariat shall immediately
inform the other Contracting Parties of the request and fix the date and place of the conference inagreement with the chairman in office since the previous plenary meeting and convene this conferenceat the earliest possible date. The chairmanship of these conferences shall be covered by the provisionsof Article 16 (2), by way of analogy.
2. As far as the approval or the ratification of the revision of the Agreement between all the Contracting
Parties is concerned, as well as the entry into force of the revision, the provisions of Article 18 shallapply.
Article 20
1. This Agreement shall be concluded for a period of five years from its entry into force.
2. Each Contracting Party may, for its part, denounce this Agreement with one year’s notice as from 1
January by simultaneous notification to the other Contracting Parties through the ECMT Secretariat.
However, the Agreement cannot be denounced during the first four years which follow its entry into
force as provided for under Article 18 (2).
3. Unless five Contracting Parties including the European Economic Community have denounced it, theduration of this Agreement shall, on the expiry of the five-year period referred to in paragraph 1, be
automatically extended for successive periods of five years.

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Article 21
This Agreement, drawn up in the French language, this text being authentic, shall be deposited in thearchives of the ECMT Secretariat which shall transmit a certified copy to each of the Contracting
Parties.
In Witness whereof, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries have hereunto set their hands.
Done at Dublin on the twenty-sixth day of May in the year one thousand nine hundred and eighty-two.
ANNEX

DOCNUM

21982A0526(04)

AUTHOREUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY ; AUSTRIA ; SPAIN ; FINLAND ;NORWAY ; PORTUGAL ; SWEDEN ; SWITZERLAND ; TURKEY

FORM

AGREEMENTTREATY

European Economic Community

TYPDOC

2 ; EXTERNAL RELATIONS ; 1982 ; A

PUBREF

Official Journal L 230 , 05/08/1982 p. 0039 - 0056
Spanish special edition...: Chapter 7 Volume 3 p. 43
Portuguese special edition Chapter 7 Volume 3 p. 43
Finnish special edition....: Chapter 7 Volume 3 p. 4
Swedish special edition...: Chapter 7 Volume 3 p. 4

DESCRIPT

multilateral agreement ; international transport ; public transport ; road transport; bus ; transport document

PUB

1982/08/05

DOC

1982/07/12

21982A0526(04)Official Journal L 230 , 05/08/1982 p. 0039 - 0056

INFORCE

1983/12/01=EV

ENDVAL9999/99/99

SIGNED

1982/05/26=DUBLINLEGBASE

11957E075................... ADOPTIONLEGCIT

31966R0177..................
31968R1016..................

MODIFIEDIMPLEMENTED-BY 31982D0505.......... IMPLEMENT. FR 12/7/82
IMPLEMENTED-BY 31983R0056.......... FR 1/2/83

SUB

EXTERNAL RELATIONS ; TRANSPORTREGISTER

07203020 ; 11305000

AUTLANGFRENCHDEPOSEUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORTMISCINF

VALIDITY : INITIAL PERIOD OF 5 YEARSVALIDITY : NOTICE OF TERMINATION OF 1 YEARVALIDITY : TACIT RENEWAL FOR 5 YEARS FROM 01/12/88

DATES

OF DOCUMENT.......: 12/07/1982
OF EFFECT.........: 01/12/1983; ENTRY INTO FORCE OJ 309/83 P. 33
OF SIGNATURE......: 26/05/1982; DUBLIN
OF END OF VALIDITY: 99/99/9999

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