REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the application by the Member States of Council Directive 95/50/EC on uniform procedures for checks on the transport of dangerous goods by road

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. BACKGROUND

3. DIRECTIVE 95/50/EC

4. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DIRECTIVE BY MEMBER STATES

5. REPORTS FROM THE MEMBER STATES

6. CALCULATION OF DATA

7. THE LEVEL OF CHECKS IN THE MEMBER STATES

8. THE PROPORTION OF TRANSPORT OPERATIONS INFRINGING THE LEGISLATION

9. TYPES OF INFRINGEMENTS

10. TYPES OF SANCTIONS

11. CONCLUSIONS

ANNEX I: MEASURES ON IMPLEMENTATION OF DIRECTIVE 95/50/EC BY MEMBER STATES

ANNEX II: SUMMARY ON CHECKS, INFRINGEMENTS AND PENALTIES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

ANNEX III: LEVEL OF CHECKS AND PROPORTION OF INFRINGEMENTS

ANNEX IV: NUMBER OF CHECKS AND PROPORTION OF FOREIGN VEHICLES CHECKED

ANNEX V: CHECKS VERSUS INFRINGEMENTS

ANNEX VI: INFRINGEMENTS BY TYPE

ANNEX VII: SANCTIONS BY TYPE

1. INTRODUCTION

Council Directive 95/50/EC on uniform procedures for checks on the transport of dangerous goods by road was adopted on 6 October 1995 [1] and Member States had to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with it by 1 January 1997.

[1] OJ L 249, 17.10.1995, p. 35.

This report from the Commission is based on the reports received from the Member States and it is the first report on the application of Council Directive 95/50/EC in the Member States.

The Directive provides that each Member State shall send the Commission for each calendar year not later than twelve months after the end of that year a report on the application of this Directive [2]. Therefore the first reports by Member States concerning the year 1997 had to be sent at the latest on 1 January 1999 and concerning the year 1998 at the latest on 1 January 2000.

[2] First paragraph of Article 9 thereof.

Directive 95/50/EC also provides that the Commission shall send the European Parliament and the Council for the first time in 1999 and subsequently at least every three years a report on the application of the Directive by the Member States [3]. Due to the fact that not all the Member States fulfilled their obligation concerning the year 1997 and in order to get a more full picture of the situation in this field, the Commission wanted to include also the figures for 1998 in this report. Since the last date for the reports from the Member States for the year 1998 was 1 January 2000, the Commission could present this report only in 2000. The Commission feels however that this report, being more complete, is more useful and justifies its delay in production.

[3] Second paragraph of Article 9 thereof.

2. BACKGROUND

Council Directive 94/55/EC of 21 November 1994 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road [4], as amended [5], introduced harmonised rules for the transportation of dangerous goods between the Member States as well as in national transportation within the Member States.

[4] OJ L 319, 12.12.1994, p. 7, Annexes A and B to it published in OJ L 275, 28.10.1996.

[5] Directive amended by Commission Directive 96/86/EC of 13 December 1996 adapting to technical progress Council Directive 94/55/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road (OJ L 335, 24.12.1996, p. 43, Amendments to Annexes A and B published in OJ L 251, 15.9.1997) and Commission Directive 1999/47/EC of 21 May 1999 adapting for the second time to technical progress Council Directive 94/55/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road (OJ L 169, 5.7.1999, p.1).

The technical Annexes to Directive 94/55/EC are, as regards the contents, identical to the technical Annexes to the international ADR-agreement [6]. Therefore Directive 94/55/EC transposes into Community law the technical provisions of the ADR, which lays down uniform rules for the safe international transport of dangerous goods by road. The added value of the Directive is that it also extends these rules to cover national traffic in order to harmonise across the Community the conditions under which dangerous goods are transported by road and consequently to improve at the same time road safety at national level.

[6] European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road concluded at Geneva on 30 September 1957, as amended, the latest version being the 1999 version.

Annex A to Directive 94/55/EC lists the dangerous goods that may be carried by road and gives rules for packaging, labelling and for describing goods in the transport documents. Annex B gives rules governing the vehicles and transport operations.

3. DIRECTIVE 95/50/EC

In the context of Directive 94/55/EC and in order to further improve the level of safety in the transport of dangerous goods and to ensure a sufficient level of checks to be carried out in a harmonised way, the Council adopted on 6 October 1995 Directive 95/50/EC on uniform procedures for checks on the transport of dangerous goods by road. This Directive includes the harmonised checklist used by Member States as well as the harmonised list of infringement codes. This enables a reliable comparison between the enforcement in Member States to be done.

These uniform checks concern all road transport activities concerning dangerous goods in the territory of a Member State or entering it from third countries irrespective of the country of registration of the vehicle. The Directive aims at ensuring a representative proportion of consignments of dangerous goods transported by road to be randomly checked covering at the same time an extensive portion of the road network.

As a preventive measure or after having recorded infringements, which jeopardise safety at the roadside, checks may be also carried out at the premises of undertakings.

4. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DIRECTIVE BY MEMBER STATES

By the end of 1999 all the Member States except Ireland have notified the national measures on implementation of the road checks Directive. However, it must be noted that, in spite of the rather long period provided for the legislative process, not all the Member States were ready with their measures on the target date. A list of the legislation of the Member States implementing the Directive is given in Annex I.

5. REPORTS FROM THE MEMBER STATES

A report for 1997 and/or 1998 has been received from the following Member States: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. No report has been received from Greece, Ireland or Portugal.

When making their reports, the Member States were invited to use the harmonised infringement codes of Annex II to the Directive and present the report in accordance with Annex III of the Directive. Not all Member States followed this pattern. Some Member States used the codes from the checklist (Annex I to the Directive), some had their own system of grouping the infringements. Therefore these data had to be converted into the harmonised codes. For infringements that did not correspond to any of the 13 codes, code 14 as "Other infringements" was used.

The summary of the reports is given in Annex II to this report. The summary table contains the information on the number of checked vehicles and the number and types of infringements as well as the number and types of penalties, all classified geographically (whether the vehicle checked was registered in the Member State which performed the check or in another Member States or in a third country). Under the types of penalties, the cases where further journey was prohibited until the full remedy of the infringement were classified as warnings.

6. CALCULATION OF DATA

Member States had the obligation to give in their report their estimate of the amount of transportation of dangerous goods in tonnes or in tonnes-kilometres. This data was used in all the calculations. For those Member States that did not provide this information a proportion of 8 % [7] of all goods transported was used for the estimation of the amount of transported dangerous goods [8]. Furthermore an average journey of 110 kilometres [9] and an average load of dangerous goods of 10 tonnes [10] were used in the calculations.

[7] Knowing that transportation of dangerous goods constitutes approximately 6 to 10 % of the overall figure of transported goods, a range of the amount of transported dangerous goods was calculated. The chosen average value of 8 % gives in fact the same results as regards the groupings of the Member States in the following chapters as the extreme values of 6 % and 10 %.

[8] The data concerning all goods transported comes from the statistical pocketbook "1999 EU Transport in Figures", issued by Eurostat.

[9] This is the known average figure for the Member States, with the lowest average journey of about 90 kilometres and the highest of about 130 kilometres.

[10] This was the actual average load for all the checked vehicles in one Member State. If on the other hand it is taken into account that a major part of the transport of dangerous goods concerns substances of class 3, inflammable liquids and notably fuel, which are transported in tank vehicles of a capacity of 10-30 tonnes and which normally return empty, the same average figure of 10 tonnes is obtained.

On basis of this data the number of journeys was calculated. This figure in relation with the number of checks in the country gives the frequency of checks in the form of how many journeys were made per checked vehicle. This is summarised in Annex III.

7. THE LEVEL OF CHECKS IN THE MEMBER STATES

One of the aims of the Directive is the further improvement of the level of safety by ensuring a sufficient level of checks to be carried out. In order to estimate this factor better, the calculated frequency of road checks in the Member States was classified into four groups. This gives also a convenient way of comparison between the enforcement activities in the Member States. The table showing this classification is given in Annex III.

The groupings by Member States are the following:

In Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden vehicles are checked on average more often than once in every 500 journeys. This means that the probability to be controlled is more than 0.2 % in these countries.

In France, Luxembourg and Finland vehicles are checked on average more often than once in every 1000 journeys. This means that the probability to be controlled is more than 0.1 % in these countries.

In Belgium and the United Kingdom [11] vehicles are checked on average more often than once in every 2000 journeys. This means that the probability to be controlled is more than 0.05 % in these countries.

[11] The United Kingdom has indicated that approximately 1500 checks have been made in addition to the figure in their report, but did not keep statistics on these additional checks. This figure has, therefore, not been included in the calculation, but even if it had been, the grouping of the United Kingdom would not have been changed.

In Denmark and Italy vehicles are checked on average less often than once in every 4000 journeys. This means that the probability to be controlled is less than 0.025 % in these countries.

On basis of this information it can be concluded that in the countries where most checks are made, the frequency of the checks is roughly ten times more than in the countries where the least number of checks is made.

In order to assess the equality of checks between domestic and foreign operators, the performed checks by each Member State and the proportion of foreign vehicles checked is presented in Annex IV. This proportion does, indeed, vary considerably. However, as the highest proportion (about 40 % and above) of foreign vehicles checked are in the transit countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria) the proportions still seem reasonable taking into account geographical positions. Therefore it may be concluded that there is no indication that the checks are not balanced in this aspect.

8. THE PROPORTION OF TRANSPORT OPERATIONS INFRINGING THE LEGISLATION

The proportion of transport operations infringing the legislation was calculated referring all infringements (whether concerning the vehicle, the driver, the documentation or the transported goods) to the checked vehicle and, in most cases, on the presumption that there was only one infringement per vehicle. As there could have been more that one infringement per vehicle, this may result in an artificially high figure. On the other hand this proportion is exact for Belgium and Sweden with a figure comparable with the proportion calculated for other Member States. The information on the proportion of infringements is given in Annex III.

It was found that, depending on the country, from 10 % to over 80 % of the checked vehicles were violating the legislation, which clearly shows that the road checks are needed and constitute an important tool in improving safety in the transport of dangerous goods.

Member States were classified into four groups according to the proportion of infringements. The groupings by Member States are the following:

In Spain and France about 10 % of checked vehicles were found to be infringing the legislation.

In Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom about 20 % of checked vehicles were found to be infringing the legislation.

In Denmark and Sweden about 30 % of checked vehicles were found to be infringing the legislation.

In Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland over 40 % of checked vehicles were found to be infringing the legislation.

When compering the frequency (proportion) of checks with the proportion of infringements, no correlation can be found. This is illustrated in the graph in Annex V.

9. TYPES OF INFRINGEMENTS

The types of infringements are categorised as 13 harmonised codes in Annex II to the Directive. In addition a further code 14 was used for infringements which did not correspond to any of the 13 defined categories. Consequently, the 14 codes used are the following.

1. Goods not authorised for transport;

2. Absence of consignor's declaration on the conformity of the goods and their packaging with transport regulations;

3. Vehicles which, on checking, display leaks of dangerous substances due to the lack of leakproof integrity of tanks or packages;

4. Vehicles with no type-approval certificate or with a non-regulation certificate;

5. Vehicles lacking appropriate orange panels or with non-regulation orange panels;

6. Vehicles without safety instructions or with inappropriate ones;

7. Inappropriate vehicle or packaging;

8. Driver without a regulation vocational training certificate for the carriage of dangerous goods by road;

9. Vehicles lacking fire extinguishers;

10. Vehicles or packages without regulation danger labels;

11. Vehicles lacking transport/accompanying documents, or with particulars relating to the dangerous goods on board which are not in compliance with the regulations;

12. Vehicles not covered by a bilateral/multilateral agreement or not in compliance with the agreement;

13. Overfilling of tank;

14. Other infringements.

The figures on infringements are given in Annex II and in the graph in Annex VI.

Numerically the most significant infringements, i.e. those which account for more than about five per cent of infringements are the following.

7. Inappropriate vehicle or packaging;

9. Vehicles lacking fire extinguishers;

5. Vehicles lacking appropriate orange panels or with non-regulation orange panels;

11. Vehicles lacking transport/accompanying documents, or with particulars relating to the dangerous goods on board which are not in compliance with the regulations;

14. Other infringements.

Each of these accounts for from 5 % to 43 % of the total reported infringements.

The types of infringements that did not occur significantly, i.e. those which constitute less than one per cent of infringements are the following.

2. Absence of consignor's declaration on the conformity of the goods and their packaging with transport regulations;

1. Goods not authorised for transport;

3. Vehicles which, on checking, display leaks of dangerous substances due to the lack of leakproof integrity of tanks or packages;

12. Vehicles not covered by a bilateral/multilateral agreement or not in compliance with the agreement;

13. Overfilling of tank.

On the basis of these results it may be concluded that not all the infringement codes in Annex II to the Directive are well chosen, as the most significant part of the infringements had to been classified as "other infringements". This is in part connected with the fact that many points of the checklist in Annex I to the Directive and used by the enforcing authorities are not taken into account in the infringement codes. An example of this is that when controlling the equipment of the vehicle and the equipment for the driver only the lack of fire extinguishers is taken as a harmonised code: thus all the other faults have to be classified as "other infringements". Some infringements of the code list seem not to occur at all, e.g. overfilling of tank. On basis of this consideration should be given to changing Annex I and Annex II to the Directive.

10. TYPES OF SANCTIONS

The Member States use four different kinds of sanctions, namely a warning, a fine, a prosecution and a prison sentence.

The most commonly used sanctions are imposed directly by the enforcement authorities. These include an oral or written warning which might be complemented by a prohibition on continuing the journey until the infringement has been corrected, and a fine.

A prosecution may result in an acquittal, a fine and as a final result in some cases a prison sentence.

The fine is the most common sanction in use and represents about 70 % of the sanctions imposed. Ranked second are warnings, with or without required corrective action, which is used in a quarter of the cases. Prosecution has been reported for a little less than 5 % of the cases, whilst prison sentences occur very seldom, approximately in one case per two thousand. These proportions are shown in the table in Annex II and in the graph in Annex VII.

Statistics on sanctions show that most infringement cases are deemed not too serious, since prosecutions and especially prison sentences are rare, but on the other hand about 70 % are deemed sufficiently serious to merit a fine.

11. CONCLUSIONS

Most of the Member States did perform roadside checks on the transportation of dangerous goods in 1997 and 1998. These checks have been proven to be very useful on many grounds.

The fact that checks are conducted means that the companies dealing with the transport by road of dangerous goods are beforehand taking better care to obey the rules. There is obviously the need to have a sufficient level of these checks in order them to be a deterrent.

Justification for checks is clearly seen in the proportion of vehicles found in checks to be infringing the legislation. Between 10 and 80 % of the vehicles checked (according to Member States) were found to be infringing the legislation, with a weighted EU average of about 20 %. This clearly shows that the frequency of checks could be higher in some countries, even if no direct correlation between the frequency of checks and the number of infringements has been found.

The number of checks per 1000 vehicles varies considerably between Member States. Unfortunately some Member States performed no checks during the period of 1997-1998 (or at least have not sent a report on the checks to the Commission). In the most active Member States approximately 10 times more checks are made than in the least active Member States. In the majority of Member States at least one vehicle per thousand on the road is checked. Such a level of control seems to be satisfactory for the aims of both improving safety in the transport of dangerous goods and, at the same time, ensuring a more harmonised practise throughout the European Union.

In half of the countries more than about 30 % of the checked vehicles were found to be infringing the legislation, which is a significantly high figure. The most common infringements concern the use of inappropriate vehicle or packaging, the lack of fire extinguishers, the lack of orange panels showing that the vehicle is transporting dangerous goods, the lack of transport documents concerning the load of dangerous goods and diverse non-classified infringements. On the other hand infringements that hardly ever occur are the absence of the consignor's declaration, the transportation of non-authorised goods, leakage and the use of vehicles which are not covered by bilateral or multilateral agreements. Only one single case in the EU was reported involving the overfilling of a tank.

Many infringements were classified under "Others" due to the incompatibility between the checklist used by the enforcement authorities and the harmonised codes. This fact would seem to justify a possible future modification of both lists. In order to even better harmonise the road checks on the transport of dangerous goods in the European Union, the Commission intends to examine the possibilities of amendments to Annexes I and II to the Directive 95/50/EC. This could be done in an appropriate way together with the Member States after adoption of the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 95/50/EC which will introduce a regulatory committee for the adaptation to technical progress of these Annexes.

The most commonly used sanction was a fine followed by a warning, which might have been complemented by a prohibition on continuing the journey unless the infringement was corrected.

On the basis of this report the Commission would like to stress that road checks are an effective tool in revealing the problems connected with the safety of the transport of dangerous goods and indirectly in improving it and therefore the Commission recommends the level of checks in the Member States to be such that a vehicle should be checked at least once every 1000 journeys, on average. At the same time the Commission would like to point out to the Member States that the harmonised infringement codes should be used in the reports.

ANNEX I

MEASURES ON IMPLEMENTATION OF DIRECTIVE 95/50/EC BY MEMBER STATES

Belgium B

Arrêté royal du 19.10.1998 portant exécution de la directive 95/50/CE du Conseil du 6.10.1995 concernant des procédures uniformes en matière de contrôle des transports de marchandises dangereuses par route/Koninklijk besluit van 19.10.1998 ter uitvoering van de richtlijn 95/50/EG van de Raad van 6.10.1995 betreffende uniforme procedures voor de controle op het vervoer van gevaarlijke goederen over de weg

Moniteur belge/Belgisch Staatsblad, 26.11.1998 p. 37941

Entry into force 1.1.1999

Denmark DK

- Bekendtgørelse nr. 762 af 20.8.1996 om vejtransport af farligt gods. Trafikmin.,4.kt.,j.nr. 1995-4402-32. Lovtidende A 1996 hæfte nr. 132 udgivet den 30.8.1996 s. 4579. OBEK

- Trafikministeriets cirkulære nr. 151 af 4.10.1996 om kontrol med vejrtransport af farligt gods. Trafikmin., j.nr. 1995-4402-32. OCIR

Entry into force 1.1.1997

Germany D

Verordnung über die Kontrollen von Gefahrguttransporten auf der Strasse und in den Unternehmen GGKontrollV vom 27. Mai 1997, Bundesgesetzblatt Jahrgang 1997 Teil I Nr. 35, 9.6.1997

Entry into force 1.9.1997

Greece GR

Ðñïåäñéêü ÄéÜôáãìá áñéèìüò 256/99, ÖÅÊ Á áñéèìüò 209 ôçò 11.10.1999

Entry into force 11.10.1999

Spain E

Resolución de 21.11.1996, de la Dirección General de Ferrocarriles y Transportes por Carretera, sobre la inspección y control por riesgos inherentes al transporte de mercancías peligrosas por carretera, Boletín Oficial del Estado número 303 de 17.12.1996 Página 37328 (Marginal 28065)

Entry into force 1.1.1997

France F

Circulaire du Ministère du 20.10.1997 portant transposition de la directive 95/50/CE du Conseil du 6.10.1995 concernant des procédures uniformes en matière de contrôle des transports de marchandises dangereuses par route, Journal Officiel du 4.12.1997 Page 17502

Entry into force 4.12.1997 (Legislation on this subject existed even before that date)

Ireland IRL

The Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road Act, 1998, Number 43 of 1998. This is only the first step; Directive has not yet been implemented.

Italy I

Decreto interministeriale del 3.3.1997, attuazione della direttiva 95/50/CE del Consiglio dell'Unione europea concernente l'adozione di procedure uniformi in materia di controlli su strada di merci pericolose, Gazzetta Ufficiale - Serie generale - del 3.4.1997 n. 77 pag. 34

Entry into force 1.1.1997

Luxembourg L

- Règlement grand-ducal du 12.7.1996 modifiant le règlement grand-ducal du 10.4.1986 sur les transports par route de marchandises dangereuses, Mémorial grand-ducal A Numéro 57 du 27.8.1996, page 1774

- Règlement ministériel du 12.8.1996 modifiant le règlement ministériel du 30.6.1982 sur l'instruction, l'examen et les cours de recyclage prévus pour l'obtention du certificat de formation spéciale ADR, Mémorial Grand-Ducal A Numéro 68 du 3.10.1996, page 2030

Entry into force 1.1.1997

The Netherlands NL

Regeling vervoer over land van gevaarlijke stoffen 1997, 29.11.1996, Staatscourant 235 of 4.12.1996

Entry into force 1.1.1997

Austria A

145. Bundesgesetz, mit dem ein Gefahrgutbeförderungsgesetz erlassen wird sowie das Kraftfahrgesetz 1967 und die Straßenverkehrsordnung 1960 geändert werden, Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich, Nr. 145/1998 ausgegeben am 20.8.1998

Entry into force 1.9.1998

Portugal P

Decreto-Lei n.° 77/97 de 5.4.1997, Diário da República I Série A n.° 80 de 5.4.1997, página 1551

Entry into force 5.5.1997

Finland FIN

- Laki vaarallisten aineiden kuljetuksesta/Lag om transport av farliga ämnen (719/94), 2.8.1994

- Liikenneministeriön päätös vaarallisten aineiden tiekuljetusten valvomiseksi suoritettavista tarkastuksista/Trafikministeriets beslut om kontroller för övervakning av vägtransporter av farliga ämnen (705/96), 1.10.1996

- Asetus vaarallisten aineiden kuljetuksesta tiellä/Förordning om transport av farliga ämnen på väg (632/96), 16.8.1996

- Landskapslag om tillämpning av vissa i riket gällande författningar rörande transport av farliga ämnen (34/76), 1.7.1976, ändring (62/95), 27.7.1995

- Landskapsförordning om tillämpning i landskapet Åland av riksförfattningar om transport av farliga ämnen (66/95), 27.7.1995, ändring (72/96), 7.11.1996

Entry into force 1.1.1997

Sweden S

- Lag om transport av farligt gods, Svensk författningssamling (SFS) 1982:821

- Förordning om transport av farligt gods, Svensk författningssamling (SFS) 1982:923

- Rikspolisstyrelsens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om polisens tillsyn över väg- och terrängtransporter av farligt gods, Rikspolisstyrelsens författningssamling (RPSFS) 1996:10 FAP 338-1

Entry into force 1.1.1997

The United Kingdom UK

Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974

Entry into force 1.1.1997 concerning Directive 95/50/EC

ANNEX II

SUMMARY ON CHECKS, INFRINGEMENTS AND PENALTIES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

>TABLE POSITION>

ANNEX III

LEVEL OF CHECKS AND PROPORTION OF INFRINGEMENTS

>TABLE POSITION>

ANNEX IV

NUMBER OF CHECKS AND PROPORTION OF FOREIGN VEHICLES CHECKED

>TABLE POSITION>

ANNEX V

CHECKS VERSUS INFRINGEMENTS

>REFERENCE TO A GRAPHIC>

ANNEX VI

INFRINGEMENTS BY TYPE

>REFERENCE TO A GRAPHIC>

ANNEX VII

SANCTIONS BY TYPE

>REFERENCE TO A GRAPHIC>