EN    EN EN 
2008/TREN/065 
EN    EN  COMMISSION OF THE E UROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 15.10.2008 
SEC(2008) 2632 
  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
IMPACT ASSESSMENT 
accompanying the proposal for a directive of th e European Parliament and of the Council 
amending Directive 2002/15/EC of the European  Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 
2002 on the organisation of the working time of persons performing mobile road transport 
activities 
{COM(2008)650} 
{SEC(2008)2631} 
EN 2   EN This report commits only the Commission's services  involved in its preparation and does not 
prejudge the final form of any decision to be taken by the Commission 
EN 3   EN Lead DG : DG TREN  
Other involved services : Secretariat General, DG EMPL, DG ECFIN 
Agenda planning or WP reference: 2008/TREN/065
EN 4   EN TABLE OF CONTENTS 
COMMISSION STAFF WORK ING DOCUMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT....................... 1 
1. Introduction................................................................................................................ .. 5 
2. Procedural issues and consulta tion of interested parties.............................................. 9 
2.1. Organisation and timing............................................................................................... 9 2.2. Consultation and expertise ......................................................................................... 10 3. Problem definition...................................................................................................... 12 3.1. What is the issue or proble m that may require action? .............................................. 12 
3.2. What are the underlying drivers of the problem?....................................................... 14 3.3. Who is affected, in what ways, and to what extent? .................................................. 17 3.4. How would the problem evolve , all things being equal?........................................... 17 
3.5. Does the EU have the right to act – Treat y base, ‘necessity test’ (subsidiarity) and 
fundamental rights limits?.......................................................................................... 18 
4. Objectives.................................................................................................................. . 18 
5. Policy options............................................................................................................. 2 0 
6. Analysis of impacts.................................................................................................... 24 6.1. Base case scenario...................................................................................................... 24  
6.2. Economic impacts ...................................................................................................... 29 6.3. Social impacts ............................................................................................................ 39 
6.4. Environmental impacts............................................................................................... 43 6.5. Administrative impacts .............................................................................................. 43 7. Comparing the options ............................................................................................... 46 8. Monitoring and evaluation ......................................................................................... 51 9. ANNEXES ................................................................................................................. 53 
 
EN 5   EN 1. INTRODUCTION  
Community legislation on the organisation of working time was introduced with the 
establishment of the internal market in orde r to ensure minimum ha rmonized social rules 
throughout the Community. On 23 November 1993 the Council adopted the general working 
time Directive 93/104/EC1 which aimed to ensure that workers are protected against adverse 
effects on their health and safe ty caused by working excessively long hours, inadequate rest or 
disruptive working patterns. This general wo rking time Directive ex cluded from its scope 
certain sectors and activities, including transpor t, with the provisions that separate measures 
could be adopted for this sector. 
Following intensive consultations with the social partners, main elements to be taken into 
consideration for Community rules for the road transport sector were identified and the Commission made a series of legislative propos als in November 1998. It firstly proposed an 
amendment to the general working time directive,  to extend four of its provisions to road 
transport mobile workers, namely, ‘adequate rest ’, four weeks' paid annual leave, a free of 
charge annual medical check-up for night work ers and an average maximum weekly working 
time of 48 hours. This was in troduced by Directive 2000/34/EC
2 of 22 June 2000 with the 
transposing deadline set for 1 August 2003. All the provisions of th e general working time 
Directive, as amended, have been consolidated in Directive 2003/88/EC3 of 4 November 
2003. 
The Commission secondly proposed a sectoral working time directiv e introducing specific 
working time provisions for the transpor t sector. This became Directive 2002/15/EC4, whose 
aim is not only to protect the health and safety of mobile workers, but also to avoid possible 
distortions in competition and to improve road safety. This Directive establishes minimum requirements in relation to the organisation of wo rking time of persons performing mobile road 
transport activities. 
The rules that entered into force on 23 March 2005 impos e an average maximum weekly 
working time of 48 hours over  a period of 4 months (extensi ble to 6 months by collective 
agreements) and the absolute ma ximum weekly working time of 60 hours. Other key provisions 
concern night work (night workers may not work longer than 10 hours in each 24 hours period) 
and obligatory break after 6 consecutive hours of wo rk (at least 30 minutes if working hours total 
between 6 and 9 hrs, and at least 45 minutes  if working hours ar e more than 9 hrs). 
This sectoral Working Time Directive takes pr ecedence of the general Working Time Directive 
2003/88/EC
5 as far as it contains mo re specific provisions as rega rds mobile workers in road 
transports sector. 
The Directive supplements the provisions of the main instrume nt applicable to all professional 
drivers, namely Regulation (EC) No 561/20066, which entered into force on 11 April 2007 
                                                 
1 OJ L 307, 13.12.1993, p. 18 
2 OJ L 195, 1.8.2000, p. 41 
3 OJ L 299, 18.11.2003, p. 9 
4 OJ L 80, 23.3.2002, p. 35 
5 OJ L 299, 18.11.2003, p. 9 
6 OJ L 102, 11.4.2006, p. 1 
 
EN 6   EN updating and clarifying the 20-year old legisl ation on driving time and rest periods of 
professional drivers. 
The Regulation sets a weekly limit of maximu m 56 hours of driving time with a maximum 
fortnightly driving time of 90 hours, establishes rules on daily and weekly rest and breaks 
(regular daily rest of minimum 11 consecutive h ours, or reduced daily rest of 9 hours taken 
maximum 3 times a week; regular weekly rest of  45 hours every week at least once every 
fortnight, reduced weekly rest of 24 hours must be compensated). These new driving time and 
rest period rules constitute importa nt social advances for profe ssional drivers. The Regulation's 
provisions apply to both salaried as well as self-employed drivers. 
Moreover, the Regulation render s the rules more easily enforc ed. It is accompanied by the 
Directive 2006/22/EC7, which enhances enforcement regime  and the correct implementation of 
the provisions of the driving time Regulation by establishing minimum requirements for the uniform and effective checking by the Member States of compliance  with the relevant 
provisions. 
Box 1 summarises these different pieces of EU legislation. 
The Commission’s original proposal from 1998 of what has become Directive 2002/15/EC 
covered all employed mobile workers and self-emp loyed drivers. However, as a result of an 
extensive conciliation procedure, an agreement was reached between the European Parliament 
and the Council that self-employed drivers would be temporarily excluded from the scope of the Directive. 
Article 2(1) of the Directive prescribes that its provisions shall apply from 23 March 2009 to 
self employed drivers once the Commission presen ts a report to the Council and the European 
Parliament, which would analyse the consequen ces of the exclusion of the self-employed 
drivers from the scope of the Directive in resp ect of road safety, c onditions of competition, 
the structure of the profession as well as social aspects. Furthe r it requires that on the basis of 
the report, the Commission should submit a propos al either (a) to set out the modalities for 
inclusion of self-employed drivers which undert ake purely national transp ort activities and for 
whom particular situations pert ain or (b) not to incl ude self employed driv ers within the scope 
of the Directive. 
In December 2005 the Commission launched a st udy investigating consequences of the 
exclusion of self employed drivers from th e scope of the Directive through a thorough 
examination of relevant literature and data, interviews with representatives of both sides of industry, national administrations  and Commission services concer ned. The consultant's final 
report is available at the Commis sion website under the following link: 
http://ec.europa.eu/trans port/road/studies/index_en.htm
 
In the light of the conclusions set out in the consultants’ report, the Commission prepared the 
comprehensive report8 presenting key findings of the anal ysis in respect of road safety, 
conditions of competition, structure of profession as well as social as pects. The report was 
presented to the European Pa rliament and the Council in Ma y 2007 as a part of the road 
package adopted by the Commission. The Counc il did not discuss this report and the 
European Parliament discussed a draft report at the time of finalizing this impact assessment. 
                                                 
7 OJ L 102, 11.4.2006, p.35 
8 COM(2007)266 final, 23.05.2007 
 
EN 7   EN In order to prepare the adequate legislative prop osal with regard to self-employed drivers, as 
envisaged in the Article 2(1) of the Directive, the Commissi on Directorate-General for Energy 
and Transport (TREN) launched an impact assessment to investigate economic, social, 
environmental and administrative aspects of pos sible policy options. Th e aim of the analysis 
is to identify the best policy option, whic h would be enforceable, avoid unnecessary 
administrative burden as well as potential nega tive side-effects of the proposed arrangements 
and which would, at the same time, contribute to improving road safety, fair competition and 
social conditions of mobile workers. 
Box 1: Summary of the different social rules concerning the drivers 
1. Specific working time directive 
- The working time for mobile workers in road transport (mainly drivers) is regulated by 
Directive 2002/15/EC9. 
- The Directive was adopted 11 March 2002 with a final implementation date for the Member 
States on 23 March 2005. The Directive will also be applied to self-employed as from 23 
March 2009 under certain conditions: the Commi ssion must adopt a repor t and a legislative 
proposal. 
- The main content of the directive is as follows: 
- Average weekly working time is 48 hours (duri ng a reference period of 4 months, extensible 
to 6 months)  
- Maximum weekly working time is 60 hours 
- Maximum daily working time is 10 hours, if it involves night work 
- A 30 minutes break is obligatory after 6 hours of  work; this break shall be 45 minutes if the 
working day is more than 9 hours 
- Definition of night work and a limit of 10 hours of work when night work is performed 
2. General working time directive 
The general working time directive 2003/88/EC10, covers most of the employed workers. 
Mobile workers in road transport are covered by the general working time directive in those 
areas where the specific directive 2002/15/EC has no requirements. The general working time 
directive does not c over self-employed pers ons in any areas. 
Due to its complementary nature, the main elements from the general working time directive 
for mobile workers in road transport are: 
- Paid annual leave of 4 weeks 
                                                 
9 DIRECTIVE 2002/15/EC OF THE EUROPEAN  PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 11 
March 2002 on the organisation of the working time of persons performing mobile road transport activities 
10 Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning 
certain aspects of the organisation of working time, OJ L 299, 18.11.2003, p. 9. 
 
EN 8   EN - Free annual medical check if night work is performed 
3. Driving time regulation 
The main part of the working da y of a driver is covered by ru les that regulate the driving, 
breaks in driving as well as  daily and weekly rest peri ods under Regulation (EC) 561/200611. 
The main provisions include: 
- Maximum weekly driv ing time of 56 hours 
- Maximum driving time in two weeks of 90 hour s, leading to a maximum average weekly 
driving time of 45 hours 
- Obligatory break of 45 minutes after 4.5 hours of driving 
- Maximum daily driving time of 9 hours (extensible twice a week to 10 hours) 
- Minimum daily rest of 11 hour s (possibility to shorten it to 9 hours three times a week) 
- Weekly rest of 45 hours (possibility to shor ten it to 24 hours every other week, but with 
compensation three weeks later) 
- Co-responsibility of the empl oyer and other actors in the tr ansport chain for infringements 
4. Hierarchy of the rules 
In this context it is important to  call that the main instrument for social rules in road transport 
is Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 of the European  Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 
2006 on the harmonisation of certain social legisl ation relating to road transport and amending 
Council Regulations (EEC) No 3821/85 and (EC) No 2135/ 98 and repealing Council 
Regulation (EEC) No 3820/8512, which have precise rules for maximum driving times as well 
as minimum breaks and rest periods. The additional effect of the working time directive is not 
significant for road safety and is mainly intend ed to complement the protection of workers, 
receiving salary. 
The general working time directive does not regulate the working time of self-employed 
persons as it is applicable only to employees (workers). 
The specific working time directive overrules the general working time directive, but comes 
only in addition to the Driving time regulati on (covering all drivers, including the self-
employed drivers) and regulates other activity than driving, for example loading, unloading, 
other work, waiting (availability). 
The driving time and rest periods as well as work ing time and availability are registered with 
a recording device in the lorr y, a tachograph according to Re gulation 3821/85, as amended at 
                                                 
11 Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the 
harmonisation of certain social legislation relating to road transport and amending Council Regulations (EEC) No 3821/85 and (EC) No 2135/98 and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 3820/85, OJ No 
L 102, 11.4.2006, p. 1 
12 OJ No L 102, 11.4.2006, p. 1 
 
EN 9   EN the latest by Regulation 561/2006. All new lorries from 1 May 2006 have a digital tachograph 
with electronic driver's cards, whereas the ol der lorries have an an alogue tachograph with 
paper sheets. 
Driving time is the most importa nt activity of professional driv ers which can account for up to 
56 hours out of the maximum of 60 hours of weekly professional activity. Thus, the 
provisions of the sectoral working time directiv e are to be considered as secondary to the 
driving time and rest period provisions. 
2. PROCEDURAL ISSUES AND CONSULTATION OF INTERESTED PARTIES  
2.1. Organisation and timing  
This impact assessment has been prepared with  a view to revise Di rective 2002/15/EC on the 
organisation of working time of persons performi ng mobile road transport activities, which is 
part of the Commission's 2008 Work Programme under reference 2008/TREN/065. 
It has been conducted by DG TREN  with the contribution of an  Interservice Steering Group in 
which DG EMPL and DG ECFIN actively particip ated. Also the Secretariat General, DG 
ENTR and DG MARKT were invited to participat e. It builds on various studies carried out 
during 2003, 2006, 2007 and 200813 including two consultations with a wide range of 
stakeholders. 
Work on this impact assessment started early in 2007 with the preparation and adoption in 
May 2007 of the Report from the Commission to the C ouncil and the European Parliament on 
the consequences of the exclusion of self empl oyed drivers from the scope of the Directive 
2002/15/EC (COM(2007) 266 final). By this report the Commission fulfilled one of its 
obligations specified in Article 2(1) of the Di rective. The key findings presented in the report 
confirm that advantages and disadvantages of  inclusion or non-inclus ion of self-employed 
drivers are very mixed and should be further i nvestigated in terms of  economic, social and 
administrative impacts in order to find the most  appropriate direction for policy development. 
After the adoption of the Report, the outline of an impact assessment has been prepared 
defining main problem and polic y objectives and identifying in itial policy options to be 
examined. 
In August 2007 the Commission retained consulta nts (contractor: PricewaterhouseCoopers) to 
carry out a thorough survey and to  analyse in detail all possi ble impacts of proposed policy 
options. The kick-off meeting with consultants was held on 5 September 2007 with the aim to 
verify the full understanding of the scope of the assignment, discuss the ex tent of the analysis, 
general approach to the impact assessment and the project timetable. 
                                                 
13 Business impact assessment concerning sectors whose mobile workers are excluded from the general 
working time Directive 93/104/EC (Cambridge Policy Consultants, 2003); Study on self employed 
drivers and night time provisions of the working time Directive 2002/15/EC (TNO, 2006); Impact of 
the working time directive on collec tive bargaining in the road transport sector (European Foundation 
for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2007), Impact assessment concerning the 
scope of the working time Directive 2002/15/EC with regard to self employed transport workers (PwC, 
2008),  
 
EN 10   EN The Interservice Steering Group was establishe d in September 2007 and it met three times 
(October 2007, November 2007 and January 2008) in order to gain a wider perspective, build 
mutual understanding, discuss sp ecific problems of the anal yses, fine-tune policy options, 
review the progress, co nsider desired policy developments and revise the co nsultant's final 
report. 
During the work on this impact assessment, part icular attention was paid to the issue of 
ensuring consistent, effective and efficient ap plication and enforcement of the working time 
rules. Thus criteria for identifying the sought policy option included: improving policy 
objectives achievement (fair competition, road sa fety, health and safety of mobile workers), 
avoiding creation of administrative burdens for businesses, citizens and administrations and, 
in the same time, ensuring enforceability of the proposed measures. The impacts of a legislative proposal and the present report should be considered in this light. 
It should be noted that  the legislative proposal for amendi ng Directive 2002/15/EC attached to 
this impact assessment is required by the Directive itself with the aim to finally solve the issue of the scope of the Directive with regard to self-employed drivers, which has been retained at the time of adoption of the Directive. 
2.2. Consultation and expertise 
The Commission services used several informati on sources to prepare this impact assessment: 
• Firstly, it drew upon the results of the exte rnal study commissioned by the Commission in 
December 2005 with the aim to provide an overv iew of the state of implementation of the 
Directive 2002/15/EC, to examine the potentia l consequences of exclusion of self-
employed drivers from the scope of the Directiv e, to assess the night time provisions. The 
final consultant's report is available at the internet address http://ec.europa.eu/trans port/road/studies/index_en.htm
 
• Secondly, it maintained regular contacts with Member States and various stakeholders as 
regards transposition and a pplication of the Directive 
• Thirdly, due to the complexity of the issue DG TREN outsourced an ex pertise to carry out 
a study examining and assessing possible economic, social, environmental and 
administrative impacts of different policy options. The contract with 
PricewaterhouseCoopers was signed in August 2007. The consultant's report is available 
on the DG TREN website at the following internet address: 
http://ec.europa.eu/trans port/road/studies/index_en.htm 
• Fourthly, views of different stakeholders have been collected and analyzed in the 
framework of two mentioned above studies. 
The findings of both studies have been extensiv ely discussed within the Interservice Steering 
Group and they fed in own analysis and assessment of possible solutions. 
A variety of relevant actors have been contacted in order to obtain insight in the problems, the 
possible solutions and the impacts of these solutions. This exercise respected minimum 
standards for consultation of interested part ies set out in the Comm ission Communication of 
11 December 2002 (COM(2002)704 final). 
 
EN 11   EN The stakeholders have been consulted twice. Fi rst broad consultation ha s been carried out in 
2006 by external consultants (TNO) in the fr amework of a study on consequences of 
exclusion of self-employed drivers from the scope of the Directive. 
The consultation aimed at gathering view s of different stakeholders regarding, inter alia, the 
existing situation with regard to the distinc tion between self-employe d drivers and mobile 
workers, the consequences of the exclusion of  self-employed drivers in terms of working 
conditions and the development of salaries fo r professional drivers, the main difficulties 
arising from the temporary excl usion of self-employed drivers in each Member State, the 
possible consequences of the inclusion of i ndependent drivers within working time rules. 
Three main categories of stakeholders have b een consulted: national authorities, industry 
representatives and social partners in the sector. In total 72 stakeholders participated in the consultation process, including 22 employers' organizations, 17 employees' organizations and 
2 self-employed. 
The consultation has been performed by means of  a questionnaire for national case studies in 
3 countries: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom  and Hungary and by face-to-face, e-mail 
and phone interviews with national stakeholders in other 22 Member States. 
In addition to the interviews, the preliminary results have been presented at an European 
expert meeting for road transport in Bru ssels attended by government' and employers' 
representatives of all Member States and at  a meeting of European Transport Worker's 
Federation in Brussels, attended by a number of employees' representative s. Their views have 
also been taken into account at the analysis. 
The 2006 consultation revealed that the majority of stakeholders regard the Directive having 
mixed negative and positive impacts on different aspects. On one hand working time rules are 
regarded by the majority as having posit ive impacts on health and safety and working 
conditions, but on the other hand they bring about  numerous negative side-effects such as loss 
of salary, lack of drivers and increase of costs of the sector. Almost all stakeholders regarded 
enforcement as being a problematic issue, ma inly due to vague defi nitions and lack of 
enforcement power. As regards foreseen impacts of inclusion or exclus ion of self-employed 
there were diverging views of  different stakeholders, in particular with regard to 
implementation and enforcement issue and added value in terms of road safety and fair 
competition. 
The detailed results of consulta tion including the consultation pa per are included in the final 
consultant's report, which is available at the DG TREN website at the internet address 
http://ec.europa.eu/trans port/road/studies/index_en.htm
 
In addition to this broad survey, a much more limited, but targeted consultation took place in 
2007, which was conducted by PwC within the st udy on impacts analysis. This consultation 
had three inter-related objectives: to assess the general definition of "dependent self-
employed" mobile worker, to gain knowledge on current comp liance with th e Directive by 
mobile workers as well as to identify specific issues and bottlenecks with regard to potential 
inclusion of self-employed drivers in the scope of the Directive. 
An overall number of 38 actors (employers' organizations, employees' organizations and 
major transport companies) in the EU-27 countri es were contacted. The participation rate in 
this small additional consultation was low, as only 34% stakeholde rs responded. This 
 
EN 12   EN confirms the lack of interest in the working time directive, which is regarded as less affecting 
the industry and the profession than the dr iving time regulation (Regulation (EC) No 
561/2006). 
Whilst majority of respondents regarded that  the Directive causes enforcement problems 
which would even increase if self-employed drivers were incl uded, the consultation revealed 
diverging views of different stakeholders w ith regard to impacts of inclusion on fair 
competition, social aspects and road safety. The consultation also confirmed that there is no consistent interpretation and application in Memb er States of definitions of self-employed and 
mobile workers as laid down in the Directive. This proves that the distinction between the two 
categories should be clarified to avoid misinterpretation or even fraud. The detailed results of 
the stakeholder consultation are gi ven in the consultant's report. 
2.3. Impact Assessment Board 
The Impact Assessment Board treated the draft Impact Assessment in its meeting on 16 April 
2008 and gave valuable comments to improve th e text in its opinion of 22 April 2008. The 
main comments concerned the lack of explanat ion of the relation of the specific working time 
directive with other applicable instruments, the weak problem definition, the fact that none of 
the examined options was chosen and the incomp leteness of the analysis of social impacts. 
Taking into account of these comments, the relati onship between different acts is explained in 
sections 1 and 2, the problem definition has been made more clear and precise in section 3, the policy options have been revised in section 5 and the social impacts have been assessed in 
a qualitative manner in section 6. Other precis ions and improvements according to questions 
and suggestions of the Impact Assessment Board have been undert aken throughout the 
document. The second resubmitted draft was treat ed by the Impact Assessment Board in its 
opinion of 26 June 2008. The opinion notes the impr ovements in the draft Impact Assessment, 
but underlines that the problem definition should be strengthened, the options should be made 
more explicit, the indicators s hould be improved and the analysis  of social impacts should be 
deepened. Taking into account of these comments, the problem definition includes the shortcomings of the current directive in section 3, the options are explained more in detail in section 5, the indicators in sect or 6 have been made more cons equent and more closely related 
to the problem definition and social impacts have to the extent possible been analyzed in all options. 
3. P
ROBLEM DEFINITION  
3.1. What is the issue or proble m that may require action?  
This impact assessment and the subse quent legislative proposal deal with two issues , the main 
problem being the scope of the Directive  and the other the problem of low level of 
compliance  with the Directive's provisions concerni ng the "false" self-employed drivers. The 
action in the second field is necessary in order to ensure that the Community rules are 
respected and evenly and effectively applie d by all actors who ar e in scope of them. 
Scope of the directive 
As regards the first issue, the action is forese en by the Directive, which prescribes in its 
Article 2(1) the review of certain provisions t ogether with a description of the content of the 
modifications. This issue can be tackled solely by the action at the EU le vel, as a modification 
 
EN 13   EN of the Community legislation is only possible at the Community level and not possible by 
action of Member States. 
Compliance with the directive 
The current regulatory regime regarding social rule s in road transport, as described in section 
1, contributes to the sustainable objectives of the transport policy, namely aligning the 
conditions of competition, improving road safe ty and enhancing the health and safety 
protection of persons performing mo bile road transport activities. 
Whether the goals set can be achieved in practice depends la rgely on the compliance of all 
actors concerned with the standa rds that have been set by the current regulatory regime. The 
EU legislation is only efficien t and effective if it is implemented by all Member States, 
applied equally to all actors concerned and cont rolled on a regular basis and in an efficient 
manner. 
Compliance with and enforcem ent of Community law are a joint responsibility of both 
Member States and the European institutions. Member  States play a crucial role in this respect 
as it is their obligation to ensure correct implementation and application of prevailing Community law in practice even if the ultimat e responsibility is borne  by the Commission as 
the "Guardian of the Treaties". 
During the earlier studies as well as at impact  assessment process carried out to prepare the 
legislative proposal it turned out that the wo rking time rules set out in the Directive were 
applied and complied with throughout the Member  States with significant delay. Further 
investigations and stakeholder consultations carried out proved the low level of compliance 
with the Directive's provisions concerning "false" self-employe d drivers that should already 
be fully covered by the provi sions of the directive. 
This is based on the fact that the Directive do es not contain any specific or even general 
provisions concerning the control of its app lication. The Member States have only the 
unspecific general obligation to see that laws  are applied. Such situation differs from the 
control of driving times and re st periods, where Directive 2006/ 22/EC prescribes qualitatively 
and quantitatively the checks that Member States  must undertake both at roadside and in the 
premises of undertakings. The Commission origin ally proposed that working time rules would 
be controlled together with driving time rules under Directive 2006/22/EC, but the legislator 
did not adopt this approach. 
This in fact undermines the Co mmunity rules and puts at stake achievement of the key policy 
objectives underlying the Directive, as uneve n level of monitoring and controls of the 
application of the Directive creates the distor tions of competition between those transport 
undertakings and drivers who abide by the ru les, and therefore bear the corresponding 
compliance costs, and those who deliberately ignor e the rules. In addition to this, transport 
undertakings that disobey the rules put at risk the health of drivers by consciously excluding 
them from the social protection m easures provided by the Directive. 
The low level of compliance  was thus identified as the main additional problem related to 
the basic problem  of the scope of the Directive with regard to self-employed drivers , 
which needs to be finally resolved as foreseen  by the Directive. This situation undoubtedly 
calls for an action at the EU level, as it w ould be unproductive and against the objectives of 
 
EN 14   EN the Commission's Better Regulation strategy to maintain the law in a form, which is not 
enforceable. 
3.2. What are the underlying drivers of the problems? 
Consultations with stakeholders, various studies and review of the Directive's transposition as 
well as regular contacts with relevant nationa l authorities and social  partners revealed 
diverging application of the working time rule s between Member States, which has several 
underlying causes. These may be clustered into  three main groupings of causes related to: 
(1) the quality of transposition of the Directive 
(2) the behaviour of some mobile work ers, namely "false" self-employed 
(3) the lack of obligations concerni ng the enforcement of the rules. 
The quality of transposition 
The first group of problems relate to the quality of transpositions  by Member States. The 
timely and accurate transposition of the Co mmunity law is undoubtedly one of the pre-
requisites for the EU transport policy to function well and vital to guarantee the level playing field in the sector. 
Member States were given three years since the adoption of the Directive for accommodating 
their national systems and restructuring the wo rking time organisation, where necessary, in 
order to implement the Directive's provisions. Yet, by the transpositio n deadline set on 23 
March 2005 only four Members States had a dopted the necessary national transposing 
measures giving effect to the Directive. By th e end of the year 2005 ten Member States were 
still subject to infringement proceedings due to failure to implement the adequate national 
rules and the last two Member States notifie d the transposition of the Directive only in 
January 2008. 
The review of national laws notified to the Co mmission also revealed numerous inaccuracies. 
The delays and inaccuracies detected in nationa l transposing measures resulted mainly from a 
complex process of public consultations with so cial partners and othe r stakeholders in a 
majority of countries and objections of various interest groups of the industry, mainly with 
regard to the scope of the Directive, which hindered the adoption of appropriate law. In 
addition, the national debates reve aled that some national defini tions were perceived as vague 
or contradictory to other legislation or rule s, which was another cause of delay and/or 
inaccurate transposition. 
On top, the transposition of th e Working Time Directive came with the process of adoption 
and then preparing of national measures for application of the Dr iving Time Regulation. 
Unlike other social road transport measures, where active enforcement is considered necessary and undertaken eith er at national level or w ithin a Community regulatory 
framework, it appears that Member States do not accord working time rules the same level of priority as the enforcement of Community drivi ng time and rest period rules. This comes from 
the hierarchy of these instruments: the direct ive is only supplementary to the regulation and 
all the main road safety feat ures come from the regulation as it clearly stipulates the 
maximum driving times with obligatory breaks during driving periods and the minimum daily 
and weekly rest requirements, having direct road safety effects in addition to equal 
 
EN 15   EN competition and social protection of drivers. In  addition to this, the working time directive 
lacks obligations to pe rform control activities. 
The behaviour of some mobile workers, i.e. "false" self-employed 
The other group of problems contributing to  the low compliance rate concerns the bad 
behaviour  of a certain group directly concerned by the Directive's provisions, namely the 
"false" self-employed drivers. This is due to many reasons, including the low compliance 
discipline of the "false" self-employed, which in fact are mobile workers as well as by transport undertakings, percei ving some definitions as ambi guous, no interest in complying 
with the rules by some undertakings due to, fo r instance, compliance costs to be borne by 
businesses and related to the restructuring of  the organisation of working time (one time 
costs), to recruiting additional workers as well as to administrative costs of ensuring 
compliance internally an d proving it externally. 
Even some employed mobile workers find no interest  in complying with the Directive as in its 
result they would loose additional income  gained thanks to working long hours. The 
reluctance of some transport undertakings to fo llow the rules, in turn, stems from perceiving 
only short term negative impact s of the Directive on their business, such as lower cost-
effectiveness, higher administrative costs and higher operational costs. 
The bad behaviour problem concerns especially those drivers who regard themselves self-
employed, as they have no employment contra ct, but who should be treated as employed 
mobile workers in the understanding of the Directive as they do not fully satisfy the criteria of the definition of self-employed dr iver laid down in the Directiv e. These drivers are so called 
"false" self-employed. The directive prescribes th is group under a "negative" definition. In its 
article 3 e) it first defines that 
"self-employed driver" shall mean anyone whos e main occupation is to transport passengers 
or goods by road for hire or reward within th e meaning of Community le gislation under cover 
of a Community licence or any other professi onal authorisation to  carry out the 
aforementioned transport, who is entitled to work for himself and who is not tied to an 
employer by an employment contract or by  any other type of working hierarchical 
relationship, who is free to organise the rel evant working activities, whose income depends 
directly on the profits made and who has the freedom to, indivi dually or through a 
cooperation between self-emp loyed drivers, have commercia l relations with several 
customers. 
Then the current legal provisions  go on stating by negation that 
For the purposes of this Directive, those driv ers who do not satisfy these criteria shall be 
subject to the same obligations and benefit from the same rights as those provid ed for mobile 
workers by this Directive. 
For this reason it is possible th at some 'false' self-employed dr ivers, which should be covered 
by the directive, do not infringe the ru les intentionally, while others do so. 
In any case, it is likely that "false" self-empl oyed drivers would be det ected with a fine-tuned 
definition and enforcement of mobile workers. 
Enforcement of the rules 
 
EN 16   EN This situation is directly linked with  the third grouping of causes related to enforcement  
regime, which depends mainly on administratio n. The difficulties with enforcement create 
additional occasion for "bad entrepreneurs", which are not adhering to common standards. 
The correct application of the Community law depends largely on an effective and efficient 
enforcement practice. This appears to create se rious difficulties to Member States. There are 
several reasons behind such a situation. 
The Directive does not set any minimum system atic inspection requirements for working time 
rules. There are no clear principles for monito ring and control in a consistent manner of the 
application the rules. The enforcement in some  Member States is th erefore mainly bound to 
rely on complaints from drivers or on invest igations following an accident, only the latter 
presumably applying to the self-employed whil e in other Member States working time is 
controlled at the same time as driving time. Consequently, the contro ls are carried out by 
Member States with different extent and fr equency and the uneven level of monitoring and 
controls creates distortions of  competition, both within a Me mber State between operators 
committed to be fully compliant and those delibera tely ignoring the rules as well as within the 
Community road transport market between Me mber States which a pply rigorous monitoring 
practice and those who fail to check th e proper application of the rules. 
The only requirement related to enforcemen t regime imposed on Member States by the 
Directive concerns the obligation to lay down  a system of effective, proportional and 
dissuasive penalties for breaches of the national provisi ons adopted pursuant to this Directive. 
Almost all countries have laid down a system of penalties; but still their application remains 
sporadic due to the lack of a regular effective monitoring and c ontrol arrangements in most of 
the countries. Apart from the problem with br oadness of definitions and difficulties with their 
translation into company's administration and en forcement practice, some Member State have 
also signalled the poor enfor cement capacity (not enough insp ectors) as a cause of a low 
effectiveness of enforcement of the rules. 
The shortcomings in enforcement create mainly a problem in situations when the dependent 
worker is not interested in the social protecti on provided by this legislat ion. It must be noted 
that the deliberate misapplication or unintentional  misinterpretation of certain definitions and 
provisions coupled with a poor  quality of enforcement re sults in the phenomenon of 'false' 
self-employed  drivers. It is not a new phenomenon that  an operator encourag es its drivers to 
become nominally self-employed but working ex clusively for him, known as ‘false’ self-
employed drivers. However, sin ce the distinction between the definitions of 'mobile workers' 
and 'self-employed' in the working time direc tive is perceived vague, compliance discipline is 
low and the lack of clear harmonized require ments for monitoring and controls make the 
application of the definitions in effective, if not impossible. 
The category of 'false' self-employed is composed  of drivers that are formally self-employed 
since they operate on hire or reward and ar e not tied to an employer by an employment 
contract or by any type of work ing hierarchical relationship, but they work regular hours for 
the same shipper or transport firm on a l ong-term basis, hence they depend on a single 
entrepreneur for their source of income. Even though this category is not explicitly defined in 
the Directive, such drivers are subject to the same obligations and benefits as those provided 
for mobile workers, as they do not satisfy the criteria of the definition of 'self employed 
driver' given in Article 3 (e) of the Directive. In  other words, a "false" self-employed driver is 
in fact a mobile worker. 
 
EN 17   EN The particular distinc tion between definition of 'mobile worker' and 'self-employed driver' 
seems not to be applied correctly, which result s in enhancement of the phenomenon of 'false' 
self-employed. Definitely the direct effect of this phenomenon is the distortion of competition 
as such operators and th eir in-house sub-contractors ('false'  self-employed) would compete on 
an unfair basis. 
3.3. Who is affected, in what ways, and to what extent?  
Several categories of stakehol ders are directly or indir ectly affected by the issue. 
- Transport undertakings  – employers who are committed to  comply with the rules are 
directly affected because they are confronted  with the competitive advantage of those who 
deliberately ignore the rules. Th e compliance costs that  the 'good' entrepreneurs need to incur 
put them in a disadvantaged position in a short term compared with 'bad' entrepreneurs. These 
costs are in fact offset by a number of direct and indirect benefits that they gain by complying 
with the rules, but th ese benefits appear us ually in a longer term. 
- Mobile workers  – in fact it is generally in the interest  of employed drivers to report all their 
working time, because their salary primarily depends on the number of hours they have worked, and they enjoy the social protection measures. Hence, the non-compliance with the 
rules by their employers affects them directly  by exposing them to the adverse effects of 
working excessive hours and disruptive workin g conditions putting at stake their health and 
safety. They are also faced with discrimina tion compared with those who are employed by 
'complying' employers. 
- Genuine self-employed drivers  – who are for the time being excluded from the scope of 
the Directive, are affected di rectly by non-compliance of both operators who engage 'false' 
self-employed drivers as well as by 'false' se lf-employed drivers themselves. The first group 
gains the competitive advantage by lowering the ope rating costs due to using the services of 
'false' self-employed, which in consequence allo ws them to offer lower prices on the market 
and gain the additional market shares. The second group benefits from the same situation of 
non-limited and non-controllable working hours as  genuine self-employed but they do not 
bear all the burden and costs re lated to running own business. 
- Enforcement authorities  – lack of clear and harmonized principles for the enforcement 
regime as well as uneven interpretation and appl ication of certain definitions and provisions 
create difficulties for those who have to enforce them. 
3.4. How would the problem evolve, all things being equal? 
The evolution of the current situ ation, if no changes are initia ted, should be considered in two 
aspects that are underlying the need for EU action. 
First aspect concerns the scope of the Direct ive. If no new legislation is approved by the 
legislator (the Commission being under a legal obligation to submit a proposal), self-
employed drivers will automatically fall in the sc ope of the Directive as prescribed in its 
Article 2(1). This would mean a need for additional enforcement capacity and efforts to be made to ensure the correct application of th e rules by the expanded group of actors concerned. 
Bearing in mind the existing difficulties with co rrect application of th e rules by those mobile 
workers who are currently in scope (especiall y "false" self-employed), the situation will 
significantly worsen, if no action mitigating ex isting problems is taken. Checking the working 
 
EN 18   EN time of persons that do not need to note it down for salary purposes and who do not have an 
interest to register it accuratel y would be extremely difficult. It  would also mean that the non-
compliance could significantly increase once all self-employed drivers will be in the scope, unless a tight control system would be establis hed to efficiently monitor every activity of 
these persons. Given that driving is the main activity of drivers and that all driving activities are efficiently controlled through the recording equipment, it is evident to conclude that the 
concerns of road safety are already addresse d sufficiently by the existing legal provisions. 
Another aspect calling for acti on is the low compliance rate am ong the "false" self-employed, 
hampering the successful implementation of the existing regulatory regime . If no change is 
introduced with a view to im proving compliance level, the pr oblem with misinterpretation, 
misapplication or deliberate violation of th e working time rules will subsist and most 
probably deteriorate. This will make the Directive a 'dead law' and in consequence will negatively influence the EU transport policy objectives. 
3.5. Does the EU have the right to act – T reaty base, ‘necessity test’ (subsidiarity) 
and fundamental rights limits? 
The problems as described above have a trans-na tional dimension, as they affect the wider EU 
common transport policy objectives. The implem entation and enforcement failures cannot be 
sufficiently solved by the Member States themse lves and call for a more harmonised approach 
to this issue. The Directive's provisions cannot  be amended or repealed at national level. 
Hence, EU action, undertaken on the basis of Ar ticles 71 and 137 of the Treaty, is necessary 
to ensure that the Community rules are uniformly applied and allow the internal road transport market to function more efficiently. Due to s ubsidiarity principle and the fact that all 
legislation in the area of working time consists of directives, a directive should be used in 
spite of the aspect that problems connected with the implementation of a directive could be overcome with a regulation which would ensu re a uniform application of the rules. 
The proposal is proportionate to the problem at hand. It does not go beyond what is necessary 
to achieve the objective of ensuring the effective and e fficient enforcement and full 
compliance to the rules within  the existing legal framework. 
Hence, the proposed actions comp ly with the principles of 'subsidiarity'  and 
'proportionality'  cemented in the Treaty. 
4. O
BJECTIVES  
The White Paper on Transport "European transport policy for 2010: Time to decide"14 
indicated that with the road transport sector  open to fierce competition, more attention should 
be devoted to the effective implementation and enforcement of rules improving working 
conditions, road safety and fair competiti on on the internal road  transport market. 
The Communication "Keep Europe moving – Sustainable Mobility for our continent, Mid-
term review of the European Co mmission's 2001 Transport White Paper"15 confirmed that the 
effective implementation of the existing EU legislation on working conditions in road 
transport sector is of a paramount importance for creating a level play ing field and achieving 
                                                 
14 COM (2001) 370, 12.9.2001 
15 COM (2006) 314, 22.6.2006 
 
EN 19   EN fundamental goals of the common transport po licy. Further the Commission announced that it 
would examine the rules on working conditions in road haulage and propose adjustments, 
where needed. 
The revision of Directive 2002/15/EC is thus in  line with the general policy objectives set out 
in the strategic policy documents. Its underlying ai m is to ensure that the working time rules 
are better complied with and by this better contribute to achieve the EU road transport policy 
objectives, which in this issue mainly con cern the social protection of employees by 
guaranteeing the safety and health of persons performing mobile road transport activities as 
workers or persons assimilated to them. 
This translates into specific  objectives of the proposed EU  action. The following table gives 
an overview of specific objectives  and their indicators of achie vement. The indicators will 
enable to assess the progress towards the achievement of the objectives set and to measure the broader results achieved through actions under taken. It must be how ever noted that the 
proposed quantification and time line of indicators is only indi cative, as it is based on the 
assumption that the amending Directive as proposed by the Commission is adopted and 
implemented smoothly. 
Table 1. Overview of the objectives and indicators 
Objectives Indicators 
Policy objective 
1. Improving working conditions 
2. Preventing distortion of competition  
1. "False" self-employed drivers get the 
adequate social protection of workers 
2 Level playing field provided by ensuring the 
inclusion of "false" self-employed drivers  
General objective Improving the level of compliance with the 
working time rules in road transport  
Compliance rate increased to 90% by the end of 
year 2012 
Specific objectives 1. Clarify the scope of the Directive with regard 
to self-employed drivers 
2. Ensure harmonious application of rules 
concerning self-employed and mobile workers 
3. Ensure a common understanding of the current 
legal provisions 
  
4. Provide for effective, efficient and uniform 
enforcement of the rules by Member States 
 5. Promote effective cooperation among Member 
States and between Member States and the Commission in the field of monitoring compliance  
6. Reduce / prevent the phenomenon of 'false' self-
employed  
1. The amending Directive adopted and 
implemented by the end of 2009 
2. Relevant definitions clarified and the 
assistance on correct application of the 
provisions provided by the EC, end of 2009 
3. Guidelines issued in 2010  4. Monitoring and control arrangements in 
place in MS, by end of 2010; number of 
controls, costs of contro ls, timely submission of 
biennial reports by MS to the EC 
5. System of exchange of information and good 
practice on monitoring compliance and identifying 'false' self-employed established 
6. Reduction of 'false' self-employed by 80% by 
end of 2012 
 
EN 20   EN All these specific objectives co rrespond with the identified problems. Their underlying aim is 
to ensure clarity, consistency of the rules as well as making them better enforceable. These are 
pre-requisites for attaining the general Community transport policy objectives. 
The transposition problem is to be solved by means of the Commission services' standard 
procedures concerning the monitoring of tran sposition of Community law. Therefore the 
objective of improving the accuracy of transpos itions is not mentioned here as it is beyond 
measures considered in the analysis of the policy options. 
The revision, aiming at better en forcement of the rules and by th is at achieving EU transport 
policy objectives, contributes to the objectives  of the Lisbon strategy to strengthen the 
competitiveness of the European economy as well as the drive towards "Better Regulation". 
As indicated in the Communication "A Europe of results – Applying EC law"16, better 
enforcement of Community law,  including improvements in the dialogue with Member States 
to ensure timely implementation and effective a nd equitable application, remains a priority for 
the Commission in 2008. The action proposed cont ributes thus to the achievement of the 
Commission's horizontal objectives of the Work Programme for 2008. 
Community Charter of the Fundamental Rights  of the European Union contains certain 
provisions related to fair and just working cond itions. These include the right of every worker 
to working conditions which resp ect his or her health  and safety as we ll as the right to 
limitation of maximum working hours, to daily and weekly rest periods and to an annual 
period of paid leave. All these as pects are in the heart of the curre nt regulatory regime in road 
transport. Hence, the EU action aimed at e nhancing of the implementation of working time 
rules specified in Directive 2002/15/EC is, at th e same time, the mean to observe and promote 
the respect for fundamental soci al rights of workers. Lack of the Community action would 
significantly affect one of the fundamental rights specified in Article 31 of the Charter and 
concerning fair and ju st working conditions. 
5. POLICY OPTIONS  
The previous analysis has shown that the exis ting Directive leaving a lot of flexibility to 
Member States as to enforcement and containing  transitory provisions as  regards the scope of 
the Directive does not seem to work effici ently and is having in creasingly unintended 
negative effects. In addition, th e public consultation has shown th at there is no consent on the 
status quo  and there is a great expect ation for a revision of the cu rrent regulatory regime, in 
particular with regard to the situation of self-employed driv ers from the viewpoint of the 
Directive as well as various practices in a pplying and enforcing the Directive's provisions. 
The outcome of the stakeholder consultations provided valuable information, which has been 
used to identify the policy options. 
The following policy options have been iden tified to remedy the drawbacks that are 
associated with the current situation. Three of th em (options A, B and D) deal with the scope 
of the Directive as this issue is the driving fo rce for the EU action pres cribed in the Directive 
itself. Option C, with its two sub-options , additionally embarks upon the issue of the 
enforcement regime to solve the problem of lo w compliance. It must be, however, noted that 
                                                 
16 COM(2007) 502 
 
EN 21   EN compliance cots have been calculated additiona lly for all policy options to gain the full 
picture of the costs of achieving the goal of full compliance under each option. These analyses 
are presented in secti on 6.5 of this report. 
Option A: "do nothing"  
This option would not require any action from th e European Parliament and from the Council; 
however it would not mean maintaining the status quo . In accordance with Article 2(1) of the 
Directive, the automatic inclusion of self empl oyed drivers within the scope of the Directive 
as of 23 March 2009 becomes reality when the Commission makes a proposal on the scope of 
the Directive. Without the proposal the Comm ission has not fulfilled its obligations from 
Article 2 of the Directive, which states that "On the basis of this report, the Commission shall 
submit a proposal, the aim of which may be either, as appropriate 
– - to set out the modalities for the inclusion of the self-employed drivers within the scope of 
the Directive in respect of cer tain self-employed drivers w ho are not participating in road 
transport activities in other Me mber States and who are subject  to local constraints for 
objective reasons, such as pe ripheral location, long intern al distances and a particular 
competitive environment, or 
– - not to include self-emp loyed drivers within the scope of the Directive." 
The report referred to is the report  adopted by the Commission on 23 May 2007. 
This option means in practice the expansion of the scope of the Directive. Hence it is not a 
"no change" option that could be referred to as  the base case scenario. This option would 
provide for a level playing field in terms of soci al rules for all persons engaged in mobile road 
transport activities. As regards consistency wi th other policy  instruments this option would 
result in full alignment of the Directive with Driving Time Regulation, which covers both employed and self-employed drivers. The commitment of various stakeholders to this solution is diverging.  
Option B: Extending the scope of the Di rective by including all self-employed 
drivers, except for self-employed drivers that  are only performing national transport 
This option provides for including only self -employed drivers perf orming international 
transport in the scope of the Directive, while leaving out of scope thos e self-employed drivers 
who carry out solely domestic transport operati ons. This option would re quire revision of the 
Directive with regard to  its scope. The revision would invol ve the amendment of Article 2 of 
the Directive by specifying and defining the additional category of drivers falling in its scope. All other provisions would rema in unchanged. This option would ascertain the level playing 
field among international hauliers, but could pu t them in a disadvantaged competitive position 
towards their domestic counterparts. 
Option C: Enhanced enforcement of the Directive with modalities to ensure the 
inclusion of “false self-employed” into the scope while keeping the genuine self-employed 
workers out of the Directive 
This option provides for inclusion of the "false " self employed drivers in the scope of the 
Directive by providing for clarification of  certain provisions and adding monitoring and 
control requirements. 
 
EN 22   EN Three sub-options have been considered: 
C.1.: legal clarification within the framework of the Directive 
This sub-option envisages the issuing of a lega l clarification to the definition of mobile 
worker, which encompasses 'false' self employe d drivers. This would involve an amendment 
of the existing Directive with a view to clarify certain definitions so that no room for interpretation is left as to who is subject to its provisions. This option could also involve 
publishing guidance notes or interpretative comm unications in order to ensure the harmonised 
interpretation and application of  definitions provided in the Di rective by Member States. By 
providing for a better distin ction between drivers in scope  and out of scope it would 
contribute to a reduction of the 'false' self-employed phenomenon. 
A better definition would be to complement the definition of mobile worker by clearly stating 
that 
"mobile worker" shall also mean a person although is not tied to an employer by an 
employment contract or by a ny other type of working hier archical relationship, but 
i who does not have the freedom to orga nise the relevant working activities, 
ii whose income does not depend directly on the profits made, 
iii who does not have the freedom, indi vidually or through a cooperation between 
self-employed drivers, to have re lations with several customers. 
This option does not involve any significant direct costs form the Community budget. 
Effectiveness and efficiency in solving the problem is expected to be high. 
C.2.: administrative measures imposing full enforcement together with clarification of 
the categories "self-employed driver" and "mobile worker" 
From the problem analysis it may be assumed that implementation and enforcement is 
insufficiently regulated in the Directive. Ther efore, this sub-option envisages an amending 
Directive for the introduction of administra tive measures to enhance efficiency and 
effectiveness of the enforcement and at the same time modify the definition of "mobile 
worker" in the same way as explained in option C1 in order to clearl y put the "false self-
employed" to the category of mobile worker s, while excluding the genuine self-employed 
from the scope. This would ag ain require a revision of th e Directive with a view to 
introducing certain requiremen ts concerning monitoring ar rangements and cooperation to 
ensure equitable application of the rules a nd full compliance to them throughout the Union.  
The enforcement measures would include the following elements: 
(1) Member States shall organise a system  of appropriate and regular monitoring 
and controls in order to  guarantee the correct and consistent implementation 
of the rules contained in this Directive.  They shall ensure that the national 
bodies responsible for enforcement of th e Directive have an adequate number 
of qualified inspectors and shall take  whatever measures are appropriate. 
(2) Member States shall communicate to  the Commission details of the 
monitoring and controls arrangements set up.  
 
EN 23   EN (3) Member States shall take the necessary  measures to ensure that transport 
undertakings and mobile workers have access to information, assistance and advice in the field of working tim e rules and work organisation.  
(4) With a view to ensuring the effectiv e, efficient and uniform implementation 
of the Directive throughout the Comm unity, the Commission shall support 
dialogue between Member States with the following aims: 
(a) to reinforce administrative coope ration between their competent 
authorities, through the adoption of e ffective systems of exchange of 
information, the improvement of access to information and the promotion of exchange of information and good practices in enforcement of working time rules; 
(b) to promote a common approach to  the implementation of this 
Directive; 
(c) to facilitate dialogue between the transport sector and enforcement 
authorities. 
This option would involve certain costs, mainly  to be borne by Member States, related to 
introduction or enhancement of enforcement regi mes. However, these costs would be offset 
by benefits stemming from an in creased level of compliance to the rules. Full compliance will 
further lead to better achiev ement of the policy objectives. He nce, the net effectiveness and 
efficiency of this opti on would be satisfactory. 
C.3. : 'phasing-in' for 'false' self-employed 
This sub option envisages modalities for the incl usion of the 'false' self-employed workers by 
a clarification of the definition of mobile worker in the first phase in years 2009 to 2011 (as in 
Option C.1 and C.2) and fr om 2011 onwards, by introduc ing monitoring and control 
requirements (as in Option C.2). This would i nvolve a revision of the Directive by introducing 
the amendments and new provisions mentioned in  both preceding sub-options with a timeline 
for the implementation of the respective amendments and new requirements laid down. 
Option D: Exclusion of  self-employed drivers 
This policy option provides for the full exclusion of all self-employed from the scope of the 
Directive without taking any action against 'f alse' self-employed driv ers. This option is 
explicitly foreseen by the Direct ive as one of the two possibilitie s. It would require amending 
Article 2 of the Directive concerning the scop e by specifying that the Directive's provisions 
do not apply to self-employed drivers. This  option could result in maintaining the 
phenomenon of 'false' self-employed drivers an d would therefore not bring about the remedy 
for the problem of low compliance rate. 
This option reflects the existing situation, when self-employed drivers ar e at least temporarily 
excluded from the scope, as it does not genera te any changes in terms of impacts and their 
indicators with relation to the current situation. Hence,  this status quo opti on is referred to as 
the base case scenario against which the other options are measured. 
Another more radical option of repealing the Directive was initially considered. This option 
would in fact leave the situation substantially  unchanged in comparison with the policy option 
 
EN 24   EN D, as mobile workers would be  subject, to some extent, to the provisions of the general 
working time Directive 2003/88/EC. However, it must be recalled that  the initi ative to 
establish a sectoral working time rules for road transport workers was based on recognition of the specificity of the profession that requi res working and staying away from home 
frequently. 
In fact, scrapping the Directive would neither so lve the problem of 'fal se' self-employed nor 
of low compliance. Savings in compliance and ad ministrative costs, which could be expected 
in a result of scrapping the Direc tive, would be offset by the same type of costs related to 
compliance with the general working time di rective. Moreover, such solution would 
undermine all the efforts made so far and cost s incurred on EU, Member  States and business 
levels to transpose the Directive and to adjust to the working time rules stipulated in it. For 
the above mentioned reasons this option has been discarded.  
It must be remembered that, regardless the de cision on inclusion or no n-inclusion of self-
employed drivers within the scope of the Directive, self-employed drivers are, equally with employed mobile workers, subject to driving time, break and rest  periods rules established by 
Regulation (EC) No 561/2006. They have identical  obligations related to organisation of 
drivers' hours and benefits concerning minimu m social protection standards, which are 
safeguarded by the Regulation. As driving time constitutes a lion's share of the driver's 
working time, respecting driving time rules has di rect effect also on working time of a driver. 
6. A
NALYSIS OF IMPACTS  
This section addresses the assessment of impact s of policy options described in the previous 
section. Policy options have b een analysed with regard to: 
(1) Type of impact - economic, social, environmental and additionally administrative 
impacts; 
(2) Policy objective – social protection (including  health and safety) of drivers, fair 
competition and additionally efficient and effective enforcement. 
Road safety has not been taken as policy objective, as this aspect is tackled already by the 
Regulation on driving times and rest periods. 
Having in mind the Commission's commitment to Better Regulation strategy, particular 
attention was paid to analysing the enfor ceability of each policy option by identifying the 
possible enforcement system and co sts associated with its delivery. 
The quantified estimates and monetized valu es of impacts have been provided, where 
possible. However, due to the lack of reliable da ta or no data at all in certain domains, some 
analysis had to be based on assumptions a nd some benefits and costs are provided in 
qualitative terms describing mainly the magnit ude of the impacts. Th e detailed assumptions 
used for the analysis are in  Annex 1 to this report. 
6.1. Base case scenario  
In order to assess the effects of introduction of  each policy option first the base case indicators 
must be analysed. This section presents the anal ysis of the base case sc enario (policy option D 
– exclusion of self-employed), wh ich reflects the current situa tion projected to the year 2009, 
 
EN 25   EN when the scope of the Directive is to be automatically extended to cover self-employed 
drivers, if no action is taken by the Commission. 
The main base case scenario indicators are following:  
• Competition and economic indicators  - include aspects of employment, freight 
transported (market shares), turnover and transport costs. 
It must be noted that although the main characte ristic of the EU road  transport sector is 
fragmentation (95% or road haulage companies are micro-enterprises of less than 10 employees, only 1% are companies with more than 50 employees), there are substantial 
differences between Member States as to the ma rket share of self-employed and the share of 
employment by large companies. In order to get more insight into conditions of competition 
Member States have been grouped into four clus ters of countries with similar characteristics 
with regard to the structure of the freight tr ansport market (share of self-employed and of 
employment in large companies) and trends (c onsolidation or fragment ation of the market). 
The details of each cluster are presented in A nnex II to this report. For the purpose of this 
report all indicators and impacts are presente d in aggregated form as EU average. 
The share of self-employed drivers in the total number of all persons engaged in road freight 
transport activities is about 30%, ranging from 94% in Malta to 5% in Netherlands. It is 
expected that, for the base cas e scenario, the number of self-e mployed will increase by 0,2%, 
whereas the number of employed drivers is expe cted to decrease by -0,1% on annual basis till 
2009. Hence, the total number of all drivers is expected to re main substantially unchanged 
over the next years till 2009. 
The table below shows the estimate numbers of drivers currently covered and not covered by 
the working time rules. 
Table 2. Drivers affected and not affected by the Directive (projection EU-27, 2009) 
Assuming the full compliance with the rules 2.104.376 drivers (employed and 'false' self-
employed) should be subject to  the Directive's provisions, and 525.101 genuine self-employed 
drivers are excluded. In fact, the number of those who are really affected is much lower due to 
the low compliance rate. 
The fact that all 20% of all pr ofessional drivers who are consid ered genuine self-employed are 
excluded from the working time rules is sometimes perceived as hampering the establishment 
                                                
 
17 The number of 'false' self-employed was estimated based on assumption that 50% of those self-
employed who work on behalf of large companies are 'false' self-employed, for more details see Annex 
1 Total number of 
drivers Employed drivers 
(affected) Self-employed drivers 
(not affected) 
807.848 (31% of all drivers)  
national International genuine False 2.629.477 1.821.629  
(69% of all drivers) 
768.021 39.827 525.101  282.74717 
 
EN 26   EN of the level playing field in road transport industry. However, it must be noted that common 
minimum competition, road safety and social  protection standards concerning maximum 
driving time and minimum breaks and daily a nd weekly rest periods are safeguarded by 
Regulation (EC) No 561/2006, which covers all employed and self-employed persons 
performing mobile road transport activitie s. The Working Time Directive can mainly 
contribute to social protection of workers. The main potential so urce of distortion of 
competition is the employment of drivers as dependent workers by circumventing the rules on 
social protection, i.e. the esta blishment of a working relations hip as 'false' self-employed. 
In fact, the distortion of competition is rather rooted in non-compliance with the rules. The 
current level of compliance is estimated for 20% and will remain substantially unchanged if 
no mitigation measures on EU and Member Stat es levels are undertaken. The estimation of 
the compliance rate takes into account those businesses and individua ls who unintentionally 
do not follow the Community rules, those wh o deliberately ignore the law and those who 
consider themselves self-employed whereas th ey are in fact 'false' self-employed, hence 
should be covered by the Directive together with mobile workers. 
As regards trends in freight transport ove r the period 2006-2009, the annual average increase 
of total freight transported with in the national borders is exp ected to be 2,8% and the annual 
average growth of the intern ational freight market 2,5%. 
The overall EU-27 sector turnov er is expected to increase on average by 7,2%, and average 
yearly costs by 2,2% over the period 2006-2009. 
• Road safety indicator  – concerns number of fatalitie s involving Heavy Goods Vehicles 
(HGVs) and caused by fatigue will not be used due to the following reasons. 
There are few data on road safety that provide insight into the causes of accidents and no data 
that relate accidents to the working hours of pr ofessional drivers. Moreover, data on accidents 
do not distinguish between employed workers a nd self-employed drivers. Therefore it is 
difficult to draw from available data firm co nclusions on the impact of inclusion or non-
inclusion of self-employed drivers on road safety. 
The latest available statistics on fatalities involving HGVs dating from 2006 cover 7 Member 
States. These data do not indicate the causes of fa talities. The latest stud y available, European 
Truck Accident Causation18, indicates that fatigue is an important factor in around 6 % of 
road accidents. It must be noted that fatigue cannot be directly attributed to working long 
hours, which could be only one of the numerous factors contributing to driver's fatigue. The 
main instrument to tackle this problem is the Driving Time Regulation 561/2006 that 
regulates in detail the maximum driving time, breaks and rest and that  provides for efficient 
control. It is assumed that the main reas ons for fatigue are the monotonous, uninterrupted 
driving hours. Therefore, the driver's fatigue is prevented by strict enforcement of driving 
time and rest period rules that apply to all drivers. Because of the disputable benefit of additional working time provisions  on road safety, no quantitati ve analysis of impacts of 
policy options on a number of fata lities has been carried out. 
                                                
 
18 http://ec.europa.eu/trans port/roadsafety/publications /projectfiles/etac_en.htm 
 
EN 27   EN • Social aspects indicators19 – cover aspects of struct ure of profession (working 
environment), physical health, psychological health and stress, work-life balance, 
remuneration. 
The working environment in the sector is ge nerally characterized by the following features: 
– Psychosocial work profile is unfavourable compared with other sectors: workers in 
transport show relatively low skills discre tion, low job control and high job demands 
(e.g. just-in-time deliveries) resulting in high work pressure, little variation in work 
and isolation, little support from supervisors and colleagues, detrimental work 
patterns (irregularity of shifts, night work); 
– Ergonomic and ambient conditions: high expo sure to physical load (loading and 
unloading trucks), prolonged si tting, violence and harassment  by customers, threat to 
personal security from theft and physical assault, noise vibrations, extreme cold 
temperatures, variations in temperature, air pollutants; 
– Driver related factors: ove rweight, lifestyle, unhealthy meals, lack of physical 
exercise; 
These features concern in general employed as well as self-employed drivers. However, self-
employed report to have a better job control, less monotonous work, higher job demands and 
tasks variety, but they work longer hours than  mobile workers who comply with the working 
time rules. 
In freight transport the average weekly working time of self-employed drivers is estimated for 
66 hours on average in national haulage and for 52 hours in international service. In passenger 
transport self-employed drivers work, on averag e in national and international carriage, no 
longer than 48 hours per week. Consequently, no major potential impact is expected in the 
passenger transport sector in a ny of the policy options. Therefor e only road freight transport 
has been considered in further analysis. 
All these working environment factors pr ove to have adverse effect on drivers20: 
• physical health – musculoskeletal disorders (3 0%), backache (37%), pr oblems with vision 
(12%), headaches (18%); 
• psychological health and stress – stress (35 %), sleeping problems (12%), overall fatigue 
(30%); 
• work-life balance – due to working irregular shifts combined with overnight stays away 
from home drivers report difficulties in conciliating work and family life/social 
commitments outside work (25%). 
Working fewer hours undoubtedly diminishes the expos ure of drivers to all these factors that 
affect occupational safety and health risks. Hen ce, in general drivers should have an interest 
in complying with the social protecti on measures provided by the Directive. 
                                                 
19 No data on effects of introduction of the Directive on structure of profession are available, the social 
aspects have been thus described in qualitative terms based on the description and some figures 
presenting the situation in social sphere prior to the Directive's implementation. 
20 Figures describe the situation prior to the introduction of the Directive 
 
EN 28   EN Self-employed drivers, being currently excluded from the working time rules, are thus more 
exposed to the adverse effects on their health and safety as well as on work-life balance due to 
working long hours. On the other hand they benefit from their income level remaining 
unaffected by the reduction of working hours. In  addition, they have a different mentality 
towards work, as they are not in  a hierarchical position, but th eir own bosses, which mean that 
the negative effects are ps ychologically diminished. 
A decrease in income due to th e introduction of the Directive doe s not, in gene ral, concern 
employed workers whose salaries are usually sa feguarded by means of collective bargaining. 
However, several drivers lose some part of their income related to working overtime, which results in higher stress and fatigue caused by taking on additional jobs to compensate for the 
lost income. These consequences of a reduction  of the income, to some extent, offset the 
benefits stemming from the compliance with the rules. 
The described above base case situation reflects  the impacts of introduc tion of the Directive. 
The Figure 1 illustrates these impacts in terms of costs and benefits for industry resulting 
from compliance with the working time rules. 
Figure 2. Costs and benefits of compliance with the Directive 
 
Source: Business Impact Assessment Working Time Directive – Supplemen tary report for mobile workers in sea transport 
and road transport, Cambridge  Policy Consultants 2003 Impacts of Directive's 
provisions  
Individuals Businesses Societ y
Cost   
–reduction in total 
pay 
Benefit   
–health and safety 
-quality of life Costs :  
-reorganisation of labour supply 
-reorganisation of working time 
-additional administration  - the same pay for less hours worked 
Benefits: 
-fewer work interruptions and downtime 
due to fewer accidents and absenteeism 
-increased flexibility from reorganising 
work Cost   
–possible increase of consumer 
prices 
Benefit   
–more attractive employment 
opportunities 
-less accidents 
Improved 
productivity and 
quality Net additional 
costs of production Better working 
conditions and 
safer services
 
EN 29   EN 6.2. Economic impacts 
In the economic analysis the following aspects have been considered: changes in weekly 
driving time due to limitation of weekly working time, changes in weekly profit, demand for road transport not satisfied due to reduction of working hours, number of additional drivers 
required to satisfy the demand, additional year ly and one time costs related to recruiting 
additional drivers, redistribution of market shares , changes in total costs of transport service, 
administrative costs. The impacts of policy opti ons A, B, C are analysed against the current 
situation which is presented in option D (
status quo ) serving as the base case scenario. 
The assessment of impacts is based on th e assumption of the 20% compliance rate. 
Option A: "do nothing" 
As indicated in section 5 of this report polic y option A, although it doe s not require any action 
by the European Parliament and by the Council , but would require the Commission to adopt a 
proposal on the scope of the directiv e, would not mean  maintaining the status quo . In fact, it 
would result in changing of the scope of th e Directive by automatic inclusion of self-
employed drivers as of 23 March 2009. 
Self-employed drivers performing national frei ght transport operations work on average 66 
hours per week, and those engage d in international haulage work on average 52 hours per 
week. The inclusion of self-employed drivers e nvisaged in this option would thus require a 
reduction of weekly driving time (by 27% for drivers performing national transport and 8% 
for international freight transport drivers) du e to abiding by weekly working time limit of 
average 48 hours. 
Calculation method for weekly working time 
The weekly average working time was calcul ated by adding a maximum average weekly 
driving time of 45 hours and a weekly time devote d to other activities included in the 
definition of working time (loading, unloading, wa iting at logistics centres, maintenance, 
etc.). Weekly time devoted to activities other than driving was calculated based on a number 
of weekly full trips per class of distance x unit time of the activity (e.g. unit time of loading of 
1 ton or unit waiting time). In case of time for loading this is additionally multiplied by an average load of a truck for a class of distance.  
Example [of Denmark] for dist ance class of average 200 km: 
Total weekly loading and unloading time =11,7 tr ips/week * 70% of full trips * 9 minutes 
(time unit of loading + unloading of 1 ton) * 9,9 tons/trip = 12,16 hours/week. 
Total weekly waiting time = 11,7 trips/week * 30 minutes = 5,85 hours/week Total weekly working time = 45 hours driving + 12,16 hours loading and unloading + 5,85 
hours waiting + 1 hour of other activities = 64.01 hours 
Hence in case of self-employed drivers [i n Denmark] performing trips on 200 km average 
distance the reduction of working time woul d equal 25% (change from 64 hours to 48 hours 
per week). 
 
EN 30   EN The reduction in weekly worki ng time would result in inability of the self-employed to 
transport the same amounts of t ons. In order to maintain the same level of turnover they 
would have to employ another driver and hence to incur additional related costs. This would 
lead consequently to a loss of income, which is considerable in case of self-employed drivers performing national transport. It  is estimated that their weekly profits would reduce by more 
than 72% on average, which would cause leaving the entrepreneurial activity by them. In case of international drivers (who constitute 5 % of a ll self-employed and 1,5% of total number of 
drivers in the sector) their w eekly profit would decrease by 20%  on average in result of 
reducing working time, hence it is assumed that they would remain in the business. 
Calculation method for c hange of weekly profits 
Reduced number of weekly trips = (reduced dr iving time / distance class) * commercial speed 
per distance class. Example [of Denmark]: 33,7 driving hours/week / 200 km * 52 km/hour = 
8,76 trips/week 
Average number of tons transported weekly pe r 1 km = average load per trip * number of 
weekly trips * % of full trips * average distan ce class. Example [of Denmark]: 9,9 tons/trip * 
8,76 trips/week * 200 km * 70% = 12.141 tkm/week 
Weekly turnover = average tons transporte d weekly per 1 km * national unit value of 
turnover/tkm. Example [of Denmark]: 12.141 tkm/week * 0,23 €/tkm = 2.793 €/week 
Weekly profit = weekly turnover – weekly costs. Example [of Denmark]: 2.793 €/week – 
1.967 €/week = 826 €/week 
The weekly profit before reduction of working time (calculated based on the same 
methodology) equalled 1.822 €. Hence, the reduction in weekly profit in this example is 55%. 
The reduction of working time of self-employed dr ivers would also indire ctly affect transport 
companies who sub-contract self-employed driv ers to benefit from certain flexibility in 
capacity needed to face workload peaks. In eff ect, these companies, in order to maintain the 
same amount of freight trans ported, would have to either hire additional drivers or sub-
contract other self-employed. Both scenarios w ould entail additional considerable costs to be 
borne. These costs would consist in the case of employing new dr ivers of cost of personnel, 
maintenance, insurance, fuel, toll, taxes, one-off costs (e.g. driver's training) and in the case of 
sub-contracting other self-employed of costs of  additional outsourcing of  transport services. 
The second scenario is however  unlikely due to lim ited capability of ex isting self-employed 
drivers for taking on additional contracts. Lim ited possibility for outsourcing freight transport 
services and a need to employ additional drivers would also lead to loosing the flexibility, which companies currently enjoy by sub-contra cting some transport services to self-
employed. 
In summary, a reduction of working and ther efore driving time of self-employed drivers 
would entail the following consequences on empl oyment and market shares redistribution: 
(1)
 Current number of professional drivers on th e market would not be able to satisfy the 
same amount of freight transport21. It is estimated that in order to meet the market 
                                                 
21 unsatisfied yearly demand would reach 1.340 million tons in case of full compliance and 268 million 
tons in a situation of 20% compliance level 
 
EN 31   EN demand for freight transport services approximately 59.000 of new drivers would need 
to appear on the market. 
(2) 19 % of self-employed driver s (ca. 153.500 drivers) would not be able to continue 
their business due to reduction of weekly  profit and hence would close down their 
entrepreneurial activity. The reduction rate of self-employed drivers was calculated 
assuming that the maximum impact of this opt ion will be that all self-employed drivers 
performing national freight transport (95% of all self-employed) will close down their 
business due to the considerable reduction of  more than 50% of their weekly profit. 
The realistic (based on current level of compliance of 20%) reduction rate of self-employed will thus be 19% which repres ents 20% * 95% of all self-employed  
(3) In order to meet an unsatisfied market de mand for freight transport (created due to 
decreased number of self-employed and reduced working capacity of those who 
remained in business), big transport comp anies would absorb former self-employed 
drivers who close down their businesses and would additionally need to employ 
59.000 new drivers. In total transport co mpanies would have to employ ca 212.500 
drivers in order to satisfy the ma rket demand for transport of goods; 
(4) If new drivers are found on the market then  total employment in  the sector would 
increase by 2,2%, and the structure of em ployment would change  in the following 
way: a number of employed drivers in to tal employment would increase by 8% and a 
share of self-employed drivers in total employment would decrease by almost 6%; 
(5) If the additional drivers needed are not f ound on the market then it would lead to a 
shortage of drivers and difficulties with satisfying the market demand for freight transport. 
(6)
 In result of increased employment in transp ort companies their operating costs would 
increase significantly and in effect the overall EU-27 cost of transport would increase 
by 1,1% (around 3.500 million euros). The impact of additional transport costs on 
GDP would be around 0,02%. This would cause  an increase in the final consumer 
prices, which are not possible to estimate; 
(7) Further consequence of the changes in em ployment structure would be a substantial 
change in the structure of the market with  a redistribution of ma rket shares. It is 
expected that large companies would gain additional 1.5% market shares22 connected 
with the service that former self-employed drivers used to provide  as shippers. Small 
and medium enterprises (SMEs) would manage to maintain the same market share, but 
they would lose market power due to concentration process. 
As regards administrative costs of this opt ion, no additional cost s related to reporting 
(monitoring system, data collect ion and analysis, elaboration of the biennial report) by 
Member States to the Commission on the implementation of the Directive will be borne. 
The option will, however, impose additional ad ministrative requirements (recording working 
time and reporting obligations) on the self -employed. This will entail additional 
administrative tasks ensuring the compliance inte rnally and proving the compliance externally 
                                                 
22 In a situation of 100% compliance this gain would reach 7,3% 
 
EN 32   EN including restructuring the orga nisation of working time, sett ing up and operating system for 
monitoring the working time. These general administrative  activities are not, however, 
counted as working time of self-employed; hen ce they do not require a reduction of rewarded 
working / driving time and consequently do not entail direct ad ministrative costs. 
Employers who will recruit additional drivers will incur higher administrative costs relating to 
recording, elaborating and repor ting of data collected on these newly employed drivers. It is 
estimated that these enterp rises would incur € 1.275.887 a dditional administrative costs23 
related to employing 212.500 new drivers. 
On one hand inclusion of self-employed drivers is  seen as providing for level playing field for 
all professional drivers and aligning conditi ons of competition between self-employed and 
companies. On the other hand inclusion is perc eived as unfair towards self-employed, as it 
will give a competitive advantage to large compan ies who, realizing economies of scale, are 
able to adjust their work or ganisation to the rules much eas ier without losing business and 
market position. 
Positive impacts  
• Level playing field for all persons perform ing mobile road transport activities; 
• Elimination of 'false' self-employed phenomenon; 
• Increase in number of employe d drivers in large companies and potential increase of total 
employment in the sector; 
• Increase of competitive advantage of large comp anies (which are better suited to cope with 
reduced working hours by realising economies of scale) resulting in a further strengthening 
of consolidation process in the structure of the road freight transp ort in countries where 
large companies are dominant. 
Negative impacts 
• Adverse effects on entrepreneurship devel opment - a number of self-employed (who 
generally rely on low costs and long working hours) leave th e market because of decrease 
in turnover or increase in operating costs due  to recruiting a second driver – both resulting 
in loss of income; becoming self-employed drivers becomes less attractive; decrease in the number of self-employed in total employment; 
• Disruptive effect on the position of the sector  in countries with a high share of self-
employed in the total employ ment – their competitiveness would decrease significantly 
compared with those countries where large companies are dominant; 
• SMEs lose their market power due to concentration process; 
• risk of a shortage of drivers and unsatisfied market demand for freight transport services, if 
additional drivers needed ar e not found on the market; 
• Loss of flexibility by large co mpanies who will not be able to outsource the same amount 
of transport services to self-employed and in order to meet the market demands will have 
to employ additional drivers; 
                                                 
23 Details of calculation are provided in the section 6.5 of this report concerning administrative impacts 
 
EN 33   EN • Slightly higher administrative costs for empl oyers related to monitoring, recording and 
reporting working time of add itionally recruited drivers; 
• Rise in transport costs resulting from bear ing by large companies additional yearly and 
one-time costs of recr uiting new drivers; 
• Risk of increase in the final consumer prices of freight transport services; 
• Maintaining or lowering the low compliance ra te – a number of genui ne self-employed and 
current 'false' self-employed drivers, in or der to maintain the level of income, will 
disregard the working time rules counting on no or poor effectivenes s of monitoring and 
controls regime. This further result in rising non-compliance costs (penalties). 
Option B: Extending the scope of the Directive by including all self-employed 
drivers, except for self-employed drivers that  are only performing national transport 
In case of international transport, the reduction of driving time due to the compliance with the 
working time rules would be approximately 8%  (decrease from 52 to 48 hours of average 
weekly working time). As a result, part of the demand (ca. 3,3 million tons per year) could not be satisfied by the same number of drivers.  Having in mind high labour costs it is unlikely 
that self-employed drivers would hire a second driver to maintain  the same level of turnover. 
It is thus considered that these drivers would accept a slight reduction of their turnovers and a 
consequent decrease in their incomes by 4% in order to remain on the market. 
It is estimated that in order to meet the market demand for tr ansporting the same amount of 
freight large companies would need to employ additionally 579 new drivers, which represents increase by 0,02% in total empl oyment in the sector (increas e of number of employed by 
0,03%). In the same time the share of self -employed drivers in to tal employment would 
decrease by 0,06 %. Hence, no substantial change  in employment in the sector would appear. 
The cost of transport would in crease by 0,012% (ca. 35 million euros), which would not have 
a noteworthy impact on a level of GDP, therefor e no increase in final consumer prices is 
expected. 
Large companies would absorb the exceeding de mand for transport from market shares of 
self-employed drivers working as shippers and would gain market shares in international 
market insignificantly taking over only 0,02% of market shares. 
International self-employed dr ivers would gain benefits st emming from social protection 
measures, but in the same time they would find themselves in a disadvantaged position 
towards their domestic counterparts, without ev idence that they are more prone to fatigue, 
stress and other adverse effects of unlimited and uncontrolled worki ng hours than domestic 
self-employed drivers. Effectiveness in achie vement of the fair competition objective could 
thus appear to be low. 
As for Option A no additional administrative co sts will be borne by Member States' national 
administrations due to reporting obligation and the increase in annual administrative costs 
(recording and reporting working time) incurre d by road transport enterprises due to 
recruiting additional drivers will be insignific ant € 3.659 (0.3% of the respective costs in 
option A). 
Positive impacts  
 
EN 34   EN • Level playing field for all drivers involved in international road  transport activities; 
• Significant reduction of 'false ' self-employed phenomenon among international drivers; 
• Slight increase of employme nt rate in large companies operating internationally; 
Negative impacts 
• The problem of the phenomenon of 'false' se lf-employed drivers continues in national 
transport (only insignificantly reduced); 
• International self-employed drivers expe rience a slight reduc tion in turnover and 
consequently a loss of income; 
• Disruptive effect on the competitive position of international self-employed drivers against 
their domestic counterparts; 
• Small rise in transport costs resulting from  additional yearly and one-time costs of 
recruiting new drivers; 
• Slightly higher administrative costs for empl oyers related to monitoring, recording and 
reporting working time of add itionally recruited drivers;  
• Maintaining the low compliance rate; 
Option C: Enhanced enforce ment of the Directive with modalities to ensure the 
inclusion of “false self-empl oyed” into the scope while keep ing the genuine self-employed 
workers out of the Directive 
In accordance with the Directive all those dr ivers who do not fall under the category of 
'mobile worker', but who do not satisfy all the criteria of the defini tion of 's elf-employed 
driver' should be treated as mobile workers and comply with  the working time rules. In 
practice, however, many such drivers regard  themselves as self-employed in order to 
circumvent the working time rules. These are called 'false' self-empl oyed drivers. The purpose 
of this policy option is to elim inate or at least significantly reduce the phenomenon of 'false' 
self-employed drivers, which will consequently contribute to increasing the compliance rate 
and eliminating the risk of distorting the competition. 
C.1.: legal clarification within the framework of the Directive 
A legal clarification of definitions of self-emp loyed driver and of mobi le worker as well as 
recognition of other category of dr ivers that do not satisfy fully the criteria of neither of the 
two definitions would help to av oid misinterpretation regarding scope of the Directive. Clear 
distinction between who is and who is not s ubject to working time ru les would contribute 
considerably to reducing the num ber of 'false' self-employed who regard themselves self-
employed due to wrong interpreta tion of legislation. It would,  however, not eliminate from 
the market those 'false' self-employed who intenti onally disobey the rules. It is estimated that 
around 10%24 (28.275 drivers) of all 'false' self-empl oyed would be affected as a consequence 
of legal clarification. 
Due to a weak financial capability of 'false ' self-employed they would, most probably, 
become employees of companies for whom they have been working so far rather than start 
                                                 
24 This calculation is based on the assumption that 50% of 'false' self-employed are those who do not 
comply due to misunderstanding/misinterpretation of the law. 
 
EN 35   EN their own business and become real self-employed. Conseque ntly the number of employed 
drivers would increase by 1,5%  and the total employment in  the sector would remain 
unchanged as these drivers would only change thei r status from being of ficially self-employed 
to an employee. 
'False' self-employed are normally recorded in national statistics as self-employed, therefore 
the reduction of the num ber of 'false' self-employed by 10 % would result in a reduction in the 
total number of self-employed by 3,5%. However, this should be seen as a positive aspect as it is connected with the reduc tion of 'false' self-employm ent phenomenon. No significant 
change in total employment in the sector would appear as the reduction in the number of self-
employed (due to reduction of 'false' self-employed) would be  offset, to some extent, by 
increased employment in large companies. 
In general 'false' self-employed tend to be less expensive than the real self-employed. 
Therefore, large companies who used to outsour ce transport services to 'false' self-employed, 
would rather employ the former 'false' self-e mployed than sub-contract more expensive 
genuine self-employed. They would not face add itional costs by employing these drivers as it 
is assumed that their wages (with additional co sts of fuel, tolls etc.) would equal the costs 
previously paid for the outsourced service. 
However, in order not to lose completely their flexibility in meeting market demands in peak 
seasons and to be able to transport the same am ount of freight, large companies would need to 
outsource to real self-employed drivers the service connected with the transport of the 
exceeding demand. This would create additional costs for these companies estimated for 631 
million euros every year (0,2% of total transport costs). On the other hand genuine self-employed drivers outsourced by large companies would increase  their turnover by around 1% 
(in a situation of 100% comp liance rate the turnover c ould increase by almost 5%). 
By recruiting additional drivers (former 'fal se' self-employed) companies would face 
additional annual administrative  costs of € 160.729 related to recording and reporting working 
time of these drivers. 
No redistribution of market shares would ha ppen as 'false' self-employed drivers work 
anyhow as subcontractors of large companies. As th e rise in transport costs are expected to be 
insignificant this sub-option would not have an impact on consumer prices. 
Positive effects 
• Reduction of the number of 'false' self-employe d (those who misinterpr et the law) leading 
to some improvement of compliance rate; 
• Possible increase of the turnove r of real self-employed; 
• Increased attractiveness of the profession (re sulting from increased demand for outsourcing 
services and elimination of 'false' self-emp loyment) which could l ead to new businesses 
creation; 
• Aligning the conditions of comp etition between salaried mobile workers and some 'false' 
self-employed. 
Negative effects 
• Large companies incur additional costs to reloca te the unsatisfied demand for transport and 
additional annual administrative cost relate d to reporting for newl y recruited drivers; 
 
EN 36   EN • Large companies who employ additional driver s to satisfy the freight transport demand 
lose partly their flexibility.  
• Phenomenon of 'false' self-employed continues in force. 
C.2. : administrative measures imposing full enforcement together wi th clarification of 
the category of "mobile worker" 
This sub-option envisages introducing new provisions concerning monitoring general 
compliance as well as proposing new measures aiming at full enforcement of the working 
time rules to 'false' self-employed drivers in a ddition to a clear defini tion of "mobile worker" 
with a view of ending the phenomenon of "false" self-employed drivers. 
There are two types of measures considered in this sub-option: 
(1) Fine-tuning of the definitions in order to make the concept of mobile worker clear 
without ambiguity to cover also th e "false" self-employed drivers. 
(2) New provisions in the amending Directive imposing on Member States obligation to 
establish monitoring and cont rol arrangements in order to enhance enforcement, to 
cooperate among themselves and with th e Commission in the field of common 
understanding and application of  the rules, to exchange be st practices and experience 
in identifying and mitigating the phenomen on of 'false' self-employed. These 
provisions also envisage the commitment of  the Commission to support and facilitate 
dialogue between Member St ates as well as between industry and enforcement 
authorities. 
These measures entail some enforcement effort s and related costs to be borne mainly by 
Member States. These measures include: 
– Identification of 'false' self -employed – involves covera ge in the enforcement of 
working time also those mobile workers that  were in the grey area of "false self-
employed" in order to identify them. This  enforcement would be carried out by 
checking the outsourcing cont racts at outsourcing enterprises' premises, self-
employed drivers' premises or based on the information available in labour 
inspectorates or other nationa l entities. It is estimated that annual EU-27 costs of 
inspections would vary from  €1,9 million for checking 5%  of self-employed drivers 
to € 7,9 million for a 20% target.  
The method of calculation: Average annual co st of inspection aimed at identifying 
'false' self-employed = average duration of a check 60 minutes *average cost 49 €/check (2009 prices) * % of self-employed drivers checked (targets analyzed 5%, 
10%, 15%, 20%). Average cost per check was calculated taking account of: cost of inspector 40 €/hour in 2003 prices (includi ng the equipment and indirect costs) + 
additional costs 3 € per check in 2003 prices  (legal and administrative preparations, 
initial training of inspectors, communications  and software, etc.). These costs were 
then projected to 2009 prices consideri ng expected average EU-27 inflation rate. 
– Enforcement system – involves development of a more harmonized system of checks 
on compliance with working time rules. Th is system would be based on the example 
of enforcement regime set up for check ing compliance with the driving time 
Regulation's provisions. Thes e checks would be perfor med at intermodal freight 
 
EN 37   EN terminals, at client's premises and at  other places where goods are collected or 
delivered. This system would enable to check activities which are currently not 
possible to be verified by en forcers checking driving time rules, that is loading and 
unloading, waiting time at logistic centres. The cost calculations have been made 
based on different targets that is1%, 2%, 3%  and 4% % of working days checked. It 
is estimated that the annual costs of carrying out of checks would vary from 
€182million (1% target) to € 726 million (4% target). 
The method of calculation: average durati on of a single check of 40 minutes means 
that an inspector will perform1,5 check per hour. Cost of inspection is 33,80 €/check. 
Annual cost of checks = number of all dri vers concerned* 200 days worked by each 
driver each year * target of days worked to be checked (1%, 2%, 3%, 4%) * unit cost per check. Example: total num ber of drivers affected by  the Directive (employed and 
self-employed) 2.688.000 drivers * 200 days/ driver/year * 4% days worked per 
year* 33,80 €/check = 727 million €/year. 
The enforcement actions proposed here affect all employed mobile workers as well as all self-
employed (genuine and 'false') and they aim not only at identifying a nd eliminating 'false' 
self-employed but also at improving the comp liance by employed mobile workers. This sub-
option addresses completely th e problem of low compliance rate by removing its main causes 
(ambiguous definition, bad behaviour of driver s and enterprises, inefficient enforcement). 
In a situation of full compliance this action would affect 100% of 'f alse' self-employed. 
However, as the analyses are based on the current low compliance rate it is thus expected that 
around 20% (56.550 drivers) of 'false' self-empl oyed will disappear from the market and that 
the overall compliance rate will increase significantly. The reduction of 'false' self-employed coupled with an improvement of compliance discipline of employers and mobile workers 
(stimulated by threats of checks and penalties fo r infringements) and the fully correct national 
transpositions would result in a full compliance in longer term. 
The reduction of 'false' self-employed will be reflect ed in national statistics as the reduction of 
the total number of self-employed by 7%. This shall be seen as the positive phenomenon as the decrease is connected  with the reduction of 'false' self-e mployed, which is the objective of 
this sub-option. 
As a consequence of reducing the number 'false' self-empl oyed the unsatisfied demand for 
freight transport would be doubled (468.807.712 tons) compared  with sub-option C1. This 
means that in order to  maintain the current amount of freight transp orted large companies 
would: 
(1)
 face additional costs by outsourcing trans port services of the exceeding demand to 
genuine self-employed (who are normally mo re expensive than the 'false' self-
employed), it is expected that additional annual costs would amount 1.2 million euros, 
that is increase by +0,4% of total transport costs; 
(2) loose partly its flexibility by employing some of the former 'false' self-employed – this 
would not cause additional sign ificant costs for employers. 
The new outsourcing service requi red by large companies would resu lt in 2% increase of the 
average yearly turnover of genuine self-empl oyed drivers. This would enhance attractiveness 
of the profession and stimulate th e creation of new entrepreneurs. 
 
EN 38   EN The administrative costs borne by companies w ho employed additional drivers in order to 
take over the market share that  self-employed would not be able  to satisfy would rise by € 
321.459. However, these costs woul d not be significantly high, as they are connected with the 
additional recording and reporti ng efforts (time and cost of the company's administration 
staff) for newly employed drivers. 
As the increase in total trans port costs (around 0,4%)is expected  to be low the final consumer 
prices will not be affected. 
The distortion of competition between those em ployed drivers who comply  with the rules and 
those salaried and non-salaried drivers ('false'  self-employed) who disobey the law would be 
prevented. In addition the competitive position of genuine self-employed would not be put at 
stake by 'false' self-employed who equally  (although unlawfully) benefit from unlimited 
working time (with all its conse quences), but do not bear the sa me costs, responsibilities and 
risks related to r unning own business. 
Positive impacts 
• Significant reduction of 'false' self-employed phenomenon, which in a situation of full 
compliance would lead to almost full elim ination of the phenomenon of 'false' self-
employed from the market; 
• Possible increase of the turnove r of real self-employed; 
• Increased attractiveness of the profession wh ich could lead to ne w businesses creation; 
• Clear definition of mobile workers; 
• Harmonized enforcement regime across EU and improved transparency of application of 
working time rules; 
• Significantly improved compliance rate resulting from reduction of 'false' self-employed 
and better compliance by empl oyed drivers and companies; 
• Reduced, and in longer term eliminated risk of distorting the competition between drivers 
and undertakings covered by the Directive's provisions; 
• Safeguarded competitive position of genuine self-employed. 
Negative impacts 
• Large companies incur additional costs to reloca te the unsatisfied demand for transport and 
additional annual administrative costs relate d to reporting for newl y recruited drivers; 
• Large companies who employ additional driver s to satisfy the freight transport demand 
lose partly their flexibility;  
• Additional costs of carrying out  enforcement measures to be  borne by national authorities.  
C.3. : 'phasing-in' for 'false' self-employed 
This sub-option envisages 'phasi ng-in' procedure for the inclus ion of 'false' self-employed 
drivers within the scope of the Directive. It splits the m easures proposed in sub-option C2 by 
a timescale: 
 
EN 39   EN (a) providing a legal clarifica tion of definitions - in the first phase (years 2009-
2011), in order to eliminate 'false' self-e mployed linked to mi sinterpretation of 
the law; 
(b) introducing administrative and enforcem ent measures - in the second phase 
(from 2011 onwards), in order to e liminate the remaining majority of 
'intentional' 'false' self-e mployed from the market. 
In fact the impacts (positive and negative) of th is sub-option would be very similar to those of 
sub-option C2, with some figures (e.g. regarding increase of tu rnover of real self-employed, 
increase of transport costs) only insignificantly higher or lower. However, these results are expected to materialize later than in the sub-option C2, he nce problems underlying the action 
would be solved at a later stage. 
Administrative costs borne by businesses and en forcement costs incurred by Member States 
would also be the same but spread  over the longer period of time. 
6.3. Social impacts 
Working time is one of the key dimensions of  working conditions, a di mension which has an 
impact well beyond work. The length, schedul ing and organisation of working hours are 
important determinants of the quality of work wh ich has a direct effect on worker's health and 
safety, work-life balance and job satisfaction.  Another important key dimension of working 
conditions is remuneration, which also considerab ly influences worker's quality of life.Taken 
together, all these aspects contribute to an im age of the profession, one which to date has 
proved insufficiently attractive to  counteract the conti nuing shortage of professional drivers 
throughout the Union. 
Work can impact on health in numerous ways, and a worker's state of health can in turn 
impact on how work is being carried out. In  case of professional drivers a job quality 
performance has a wider social impact as it di rectly may involve road safety including safety 
of persons, vehicle and its load. Therefore, it is  of interest of all to ensure a high quality 
working conditions of professional drivers. 
In terms of income, the studies show that for those Member States where self-employed 
drivers form a large proportion of  the sector, income is considered to be in the high bracket – 
this reflects the long hours th at such drivers normally are expected to work. For those 
Member States, where a relatively small percentage of self-employed drivers serve mainly larger transport companies as subcontractors, a lower income bracket is the norm. Exclusion of the self-employed allows them to maintain th eir income level, as well as their competitive 
position within the sector. While the Directive doe s not address the issue of profitability it is 
evident that this is a key aspect for the future  viability of the self-e mployed driver. Applying 
the Directive’s provisions directly to self-empl oyed drivers would have an inevitable impact 
by rendering the profession less financially attractive. 
The studies have confirmed that inclusion of self-employed drivers would reduce the physical 
workload to be undertaken by th em. For the psycho-social work  profile in the sector, the 
studies note that work demands  would have to be managed within a shorter timeframe, 
leading to a loss in job control. 
 
EN 40   EN It should be remembered that the profile of the self-employe d driver is a young entrepreneur. 
Given the continuing chronic shor tage of drivers within the s ector, such drivers have the 
choice of becoming a mobile worker or a self-e mployed driver. The latter offers them the 
possibility of increased job cont rol and higher income, with the need to invest more time and 
energy to make it profitable. 
While exclusion of self-employed drivers from the Directive is not contributing to additional 
health or better work/life balance, their in clusion would generate additional stress and 
administrative workload for the self-employe d and at the same tim e would reduce their 
income. The social balance in the options is th erefore related to which extent and under which 
conditions the self-employed are expected  to be covered by the legislation. 
Geographical illustration of social aspects of a ll workers in the sector is assessed contain the 
following aspects: 
• North (Denmark, Sweden and Finland) 
– irregularity in working hours 
– need of skill development 
– physical load 
– less work-related health problems, but  still more absences from work 
• Middle (Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, Aust ria, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom 
and Ireland) 
– relatively low income 
– regular working times 
– less responsibilities 
– exposure to ambient conditions, expo sure to violence and intimidation 
– less work-related health problems, but  still more absences from work 
• South (Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece) 
– many self-employed 
– relatively high income 
– regular working times 
– less control and less skilled work  (including trai ning opportunities) 
– physical risks, but not violence and intimidation 
– more work-related health problems 
• New Member States (Cyprus, Es tonia, Hungary, Malta, Poland,  Slovenia, Sl ovakia and the 
Czech Republic) and Lithuania+Latvia: 
– long working days, but not in the evening/nights 
– desire to work more hours 
– exposed to ambient conditions, but low physical workload, violence and 
intimidation 
– mixed profile on psychosocial risks: less  skilled work, low control over working 
times 
It seems from the experience in these different geographical areas that tradition has shaped the 
market, the actors and the att itude towards work and working conditions, which will stay 
different even when Community legislation on working time has been applied. The same rules 
have had different consequences  in different regions and abse nces from work seem not to 
correlate to real underlying causes. 
 
EN 41   EN In this context the policy options have been an alyzed with a view to establish positive and 
negative impacts of each option in  terms of physical health, ps ychological health and stress, 
work-life balance and road safety. 
Option A 
Limiting working hours of self-e mployed drivers by including th em within the scope of the 
Directive (Option A) would re duce the exposure to job-relate d physical load and violence. 
Self-employed drivers would be indeed protecte d against adverse effects of working excessive 
long hours on their health and safety. Providing th at the intensity of work will not increase 
due to limited working hours, the inclusion would further contribute to improving self-
employed drivers' health and safe ty and to lessening the fatigue a nd stress. This would lead to 
improving driving quality and coul d in turn have a small effect  on the overall improvement of 
road safety. 
Working time is obviously a vital element in linking and balancing wo rk and life. Hence, 
reducing hours spent at work would help self -employed drivers in reconciling work and non-
working activities (family and social commitments). 
However, this cause-effect relation is highly simplified. The positive effects are offset by a 
number of negative impacts. The inclusion would impose on self-employed drivers to: 
(1) Either resign from a part of their turnove r and hence lose a signi ficant part of their 
income, which would cause higher stress rela ted to the need of lowering living costs, 
greater fatigue and stress resulti ng from taking on extra jobs illegally25 to compensate 
for lost income; 
(2) Or to employ a second driver in order to maintain amount of freight transported, 
resulting in increasing the operating cost s and hence in lowering the profits, which 
would further lead to higher stress due to worsening living standards; 
(3) Or to maintain the operating costs and the le vel of freight trans ported by increasing the 
intensity of own work, which would in turn lead to a very high time pressure, lower 
job control, greater fatigue , health problems and stre ss - all contributing to 
endangering road safety. 
Work-related stress could, in addition, negativel y affect family life diminishing the gain of 
better life-work balance gain ed by working fewer hours. 
When considering the social impacts of incl usion of self-employed drivers it must be 
remembered that the Directive only covers a proportion of a self-employed driver’s work. 
Such driver is still able to work excessive hour s as the following activities are excluded from 
the self-employed working time: going to see the accountant/lawyer, general administrative 
work not linked to the specific transport operati on underway. The risk arises that in order to 
compensate the lost income self-employe d driver would take on an extra job. 
                                                 
25 Taking on extra job legally is restricted by Regulation (EC) No 561/2006, which requires that all work 
carried out by a driver, within or outside transpor t sector, should be recorded. Hence, in order to 
compensate for the lost income by taking on extra job drivers would work illegally by not respecting the 
rest periods as prescribed in the Regulation. 
 
EN 42   EN On the other hand it must be noted that self-employed driv ers make money essentially by 
driving, and this is the element that has been successfully targeted by the driving time rules. 
The opinions of stakeholde rs with regard to the impact of  inclusion or exclusion of self-
employed on the road safety are diverging. Some  state that the Regula tion on driving and rest 
time is sufficient to guarantee road safety an d that accidents might even increase when 
working hours are limited (more trucks on the road, higher pressure on drivers). Others 
indicate that a reduction of working time is necessary from the viewpoint of safety, 
particularly in countries wher e a significant number of driver s is self-employed. However, 
only minority of stakeholders expect that excl usion of self-employed drivers might have a 
negative impact on road safety. 
Taking into account the very limited contributi on of working time to road safety and the 
importance of negative side-effect s of imposing working time limits to self-employed, it is 
assumed that the estimated improvements in health/safety and work-life balance will be 
largely undermined by the loss of earnings and the overall impact of inclusion of the self-
employed will be very negative. 
Option B 
The qualitative positive and negati ve impacts of this option would be the same as in option A. 
Only the overall dimension of these impacts would be much smaller, as the number of 
affected self-employed drivers is lower. It is expected th at around 8.000 of complying self-
employed drivers performing international frei ght transport (out of  ca. 40.000 of all 
international freight transport self-employed) would be affect ed by the reduction of working 
time hours and its consequences26. Moreover self-employed drivers performing international 
freight transport work on average shorter hour s (52 hours) than thos e involved in national 
transport (average 66 weekly). The reduction in their working time will be thus minor, by 
only 8%. Consequently also the effects in term s of the overall fatigue reduction prevention are 
expected to be insignificant, if any. In a ddition, work-life balance is not improved by a 
smaller amount of working hours, as these addi tional free hours incur abroad, but the negative 
effects of loss of earnings stay. 
Option C 
All three sub-options C aim, in general, at mitigating and preventing a phenomenon of 'false' 
self-employed. Options C2 and C3 additionally provi de for measures to enhance compliance 
with working time rules of all drivers cove red by these rules by enhancing enforcement 
regime. Hence, social impacts of option C1 will be limited by relatively small number of 
'false' self-employed drivers (approximately 28. 000 of 'false' self-empl oyed who misinterpret 
the law) affected by the working time rules. As 'false' self-employed give  usually higher value 
to their spare time than real self-employed they are expected to truly benefit from an 
improved work-life balance as a consequence of following working time rules. Their job will 
become less stressful, as being salaried worker does not involve a risk losing an income in 
case of an entrepreneur's failure. Shorter working hours will reduce driver's exposure to 
factors influencing occupational safety and he alth risks. Coupled w ith less stressful job 
demands drivers affected will gain, in longer term, better psychological and physical health, 
less fatigue. Yet the contribution to bette r road safety will be insignificant. 
                                                 
26 Compared with ca. 161.000 complying self-employed (out of 808.000 all self-employed drivers) 
affected by reduced hours in option A. 
 
EN 43   EN In case of option C2 and C3 social impacts are e xpected to be of the sa me type, but larger in 
their scope. This is due to that measures pr oposed address much broa der group of drivers, 
namely all 'false' self-employe d (not only those who misinterpret the law unintentionally) and 
all employed who do not comply with the rules. As "false" self-employed drivers will get the 
social protection of workers, it is estimated that  they gain in health and safety, in work-life 
balance and job satisfaction, while they will not be subject to lo ss of earnings or in any case to 
a very limited loss. Therefore the overall social  impact is estimated to be very positive. . 
6.4. Environmental impacts 
In theory all options could result in the modal split of the freight transport industry and/or in 
an increase of the number of trucks on the ro ads. These could have direct environmental 
impacts. However, as a reduction of working time affects mainly  drivers engaged in short and 
medium distance freight transport, it is very unlikely that unsatisfied market demand would be 
shifted to rail or air transport modes. Hen ce, no positive environmental impact by shifting the 
service to more environment-friendly mode of transport such as rail is expected. 
A reduction of working hours may also result in recruiting additional drivers and hence 
engaging additional vehicles. However, as it does not entail the increase of quantity of freight to be transported, thus no more vehicles ar e needed to run simultaneously, hence no negative 
effects on the environment are expected. 
6.5. Administrative impacts 
The revision of the Directive s hould also be seen in the light  of compliance costs. Compliance 
costs mean the costs incurred by the Comm ission, Member States  public authorities, 
enterprises and citizens in meeting legal obligat ions stemming from the Community rules. In 
other words these are all costs that are necessary to bear in order to en sure that the rules are 
effectively, efficiently and equitably implemen ted. These costs include generic costs specific 
to functioning of a given sector, transposition costs, enforcement costs and administrative 
costs27. 
The low level of compliance with the Directive' s provisions identified as the main problem 
besides the scope of the directive will not be  solved by simply revising the scope of the 
Directive. Without ensuring eff ective enforcement of the rules exclusion of self-employed 
drivers could lead to enhanci ng the phenomenon of 'false' self -employed, and inclusion could 
result in deliberate disobeying the rules coun ting on weakness (or lack) of the monitoring and 
control system. Both situations would lead in fact to lowering the level of compliance. 
Therefore, to gain a better pictur e of costs of all policy options from the viewpoint of ensuring 
compliance, the enforcement measures proposed in option C2 (and C3) have been analysed 
for each policy option. 
The table below presents the summary of annual costs related to ensuri ng compliance with the 
Directive. These costs include administrative and enforcement costs borne by Member States 
(management of data, checking the status of self -employed in order to identify 'false' self-
                                                 
27 Administrative costs mean the costs incurred by en terprises, the voluntary sector, public authorities and 
citizens in meeting legal obligations to provide information on their activities either to public or to 
private parties. – "Measuring administrative costs an d reducing administrative burdens in the European 
Union", Commission Working Document, COM(2006)691 final. 
 
EN 44   EN employed, carrying out checks at intermodal frei ght terminals to verify the compliance with 
working time rules by all drivers concerned) a nd administrative costs borne by private sector 
(costs of recording, monitoring and reporti ng working time). These costs do not include 
administrative costs borne by Member States in re lation to preparation of  a biennial report to 
the Commission on implementation of the Dir ective, as these costs will not change. 
The details of calculatio ns of annual enforcement and admini strative costs to be borne by EU, 
national public sector and private sector can be found in Annex III to this report. 
  Parties 
affected by 
cost Identifying of 
"false" self 
employed drivers 
(20% target) Enforcement 
system (costs for 
4% target) Monitoring and 
reporting28  Total 
EU       0 
MSs  727.047.048   727.047.048 
Op. A  
Private 
sector     1.275.887 1.275.887 
EU       0  
MSs  509.626.991   509.626.991 
Op. B  
Private 
sector     3.659 3.659 
EU       0  
MSs  533.532.100   533.532.100 
Op. C.1  
Private 
sector     160.729 160.729 
EU       0  
MSs 7.916.505 570.549.464   578.465.969 
Op. C.2  
Private 
sector     321.459 321.459 
EU       0  
MSs  494.774.878   494.774.878 
Op. D   
Private 
sector     No change  0 
Source: Own calculations and Impact assessment concerning the scope of the working time directive 
2002/15/EC with regard to self-employed transport workers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, February 2008. 
The results of analysis show that Option A is the most costly as it imposes the highest costs 
for Member States related to establishing enfo rcement system and carrying out checks and the 
highest costs for private sector related to recording, monitoring  and reporting of working time. 
In addition Option A was proved to be the most di fficult from the viewpoint of enforceability, 
as it is almost impossible to verify the re liability of working tim e records done by self-
employed drivers and control all ac tivities such as waiting time at client's premises. Hence the 
effects and costs that would be needed to pr ovide for a reasonable level of compliance would 
be disproportionate to  the results achieved. 
                                                 
28 Including collection and elaboration 
 
EN 45   EN The least costly, in general, is option D (base case scenario). This option, which maintains the 
current temporary regime, does not  involve any actions that coul d create additional costs. This 
option, however, results in high non-compliance co sts as it does not solve the problem of non-
compliance. 
The cheapest option considered is option B (30%  less compliance costs compared with costs 
of option A). It entails insignificant administ rative costs for private sector equalling only 
0,3% of respective cost s in option A; and around 2% of comp liance costs in options C. On the 
other hand enforcement costs of option B borne by Member States due to carrying out checks 
are only slightly lower than t hose in options C (5 % less than option C1 and 12 % less than 
option C2 and C3). Hence option B is the cheapest from the view point of administrative costs 
for businesses and almost as expensive as options  C in terms of enforcement costs. However, 
option B does not significantly im prove the situation with regard  to the phenomenon of 'false' 
self-employed. Options C.2 and C.3 seem to re present the best effectiveness in solving the 
problem of low compliance by elim inating its underlying causes and in the same time their 
efficiency in achieving the expe cted results is achieved without  excessive costs involved. The 
funds invested and administrative efforts made seem to balance best in options C.2 and C.3. 
The main options may also be  put to a simplified table: 
  Parties 
affected by 
cost Identifying of 
"false" self 
employed 
drivers (20% 
target) Enforcement 
system (costs for 
4% target) Monitoring and 
reporting29  Total  
Total additional 
costs, euro per 
year * 
EU       0 
MSs  727.047.048   727.047.048 Op. A  
Private 
sector     1.275.887 1.275.887 233.548.057 
EU       0  
MSs 7.916.505 570.549.464   578.465.969 Op. C2 
(= approximately B)  
Private 
sector     321.459 321.459 84.012.550 
EU       0  
MSs  494.774.878   494.774.878 Op. D   
Private 
sector     No change  0 0 
* As the enforcement costs in option D are cost s that are assumed to be borne already today 
by the Member States, these costs may be set as  zero and count the cost of options as the 
additional cost of the option. 
                                                 
29 Including collection and elaboration 
 
EN 46   EN 7. COMPARING THE OPTIONS  
This section presents strengths and weaknesse s of each policy option based on comparison of 
economic, social and administrative impacts of all options and from th e perspective of the 
achievement of specific policy objectives. Th e policy options are compared based on the 
following criteria: effectiveness (level of ach ievement of policy obj ectives), efficiency 
(resources needed to achieve these objectives), consistency (balance of positive and negative, direct and indirect impacts), compliance cost s (net increase or decrease), proportionality 
(complexity of proposed interven tion) and subsidiarity (to what  extent does the intervention 
leave scope to national decisions?). It must be  noted that the impacts concern those drivers 
who are affected by the policy option and who comp ly with the provisions, and not all drivers 
who should comply. 
Table 3. Main impacts of policy options per po licy objective compared to base case scenario 
option D 
Policy 
objective Type of impact Option A Option B Option C.1 Option C.230 
Physical health 
and safety, 
psychological 
health and work-related stress + /-  
Reduced exposure 
to physical load and safety risks, 
but increased 
workload, fatigue and stress due to 
taking on extra 
job illegally, stress due to 
reduced income +  
Only SEI who 
comply benefit 
 +  
Some FSE 
benefit 
(only FSE who 
misinterpret the law) ++  
Many FSE 
benefit 
Work-life balance  +/-  
Better fit, but risk 
of worsening family life due to 
lower income + + 
Some FSE 
benefit (FSE more interested 
in social 
protection than GSE) ++ 
Many FSE 
benefit 
Remuneration of SEN - 72% reduction 
of weekly profit =  + 1% increase 
of turnover + 2% increase of 
turnover Working conditions  
Remuneration of 
SEI - 4,2% reduction 
of weekly profit - 4,2% 
reduction of 
weekly profit = = 
Road safety Scarce, incomplete and incomparable data, implausible assumption on share of fatalities 
caused by fatigue and lack of information on causes of fatigue make it impossible to analyse 
the quantitative impacts of poli cy options on number of fata lities which could be prevented 
under each option. However, generally it can be concluded that working time as such does not 
have effect on road safety as this question is mainly dealt with by the Driving time regulation. 
Conditions of 
competition  New jobs in the 
sector + / - 
2,2% increase in 
total employment 
if additional 
drivers are found = level of total 
employment maintained (+ 0,02% increase 
of employed 
offset by -0,01 = = + 
Increasing 
number of new 
entrepreneurs in 
longer term  
                                                 
30 Option C3 is option C2 phased in over 2 years 
 
EN 47   EN Policy 
objective Type of impact Option A Option B Option C.1 Option C.230 
(change of 
employment structure: + 8% of 
employed drivers 
and - 6% of self-employed in total 
employment)  
Risk of shortage 
of drivers if additional drivers are not found decrease of 
self-employed in total 
employment )  
No. of SE - -  
19% reduction 
and remaining SE loose competitive position and 
market share -  
SEI 
disadvantaged compared to SEN =  
No. of genuine 
self-employed remains unchanged 
However, due 
to elimination 
of 'false' self-
employed, the national 
statistics will 
show decrease by 3,5% in a 
no. of self-
employed = 
No. of genuine 
self-employed remains unchanged 
However, due to 
elimination of 
'false' self-
employed, the national statistics 
will show 
decrease by 7% in a no. of self-
employed 
No. of FSE n.a. =/- may reduce 
by a number of international 'false' self-
employed 
affected  Reduction of 
10% Reduction of 20% 
to be further reduced in long term due to more 
effective 
enforcement  
SMEs =/- maintain 
market share but loose market power = = = 
Large Companies ++ Gain market 
share 1,5% + Gain market 
share 0,2% = = 
Cost of transport + 1,1% + 0,01% + 0,2% + 0,4% 
Consumer prices Increase =/insignificant 
increase =/insignificant 
increase =/insignificant 
increase 
Probability of inclusion of FSE Full 
(in theory as they 
may not comply) Very low  
(small no. of 
FSE affected) Low 
(affected only 
those FSE who misinterpret the law)  High  
(affected all FSE 
and all employed drivers, due to better 
enforcement 
regime) Compliance 
General 
compliance  - Reduce (broader 
group of drivers concerned coupled with the 
same low level of =  
insignificant 
improvement if 
international 
FSE are + Improve ++ Improve 
significantly 
 
EN 48   EN Policy 
objective Type of impact Option A Option B Option C.1 Option C.230 
compliance 
discipline and weak 
enforcement) eliminated is 
offset by the risk that SEI 
ignore rules 
Identification of 
FSE  n.a. n.a. n.a. Increase  
€ 1,9 to 7,9 
million (depends on target 5%, 
20%) 
Enforcement 
(checks on compliance) Increase 
€ 182 to 727 
million (depends on target level 1%-4%) Increase 
€ 127 to 
509million Increase  
€ 133 to 534 
million Increase  
€ 143 to 
571million  
Administrative costs by public sector (reporting 
by MS) = = = = 
Administrative 
costs by private 
sector  Increase (annual) 
€ 1.275.887  Increase 
€ 3.659  Increase  
€ 160.729  Increase 
€ 321.459  
Legend: FSE – 'false' self-employed, GSE  - genuine self-employed, SEI – self-employed performing 
international transport, SEN  – self-employed performing national transport 
They key conclusions of options comparison are summed up below: 
(1) The "no change" option D – used here as base  case scenario - woul d leave the situation 
generally unchanged, self-employed driver s who are temporarily excluded would be 
permanently excluded from the working time rules. Assuming that the transposition 
problem is solved by the Commission standa rd action, the problem of low compliance 
rate would remain unsolved. In fact the co mpliance rate could even worsen with a time 
passing by, as the low compliance discipline and weak enforcement are not removed. This would further lead to undermini ng the key policy objectives. Hence, the 
effectiveness and efficiency of this option is  low. The balance of impacts is negative. 
As it does not foresee any complex interven tions there would be no effects from the 
viewpoint of proportionality and subsidiarity. 
(2)
 The "full inclusion" Option A – clarifies the issue of the scope of the Directive making 
all professional drivers subject to the rules. It will only partly a nd indirectly addresses 
the problem of low compliance by including 'false' self-employed (together with all 
self-employed) within the scope of the Dire ctive. Changing the sc ope does not ensure 
that these drivers will comply with the rule s. On the contrary, br oader target group of 
the Directive coupled with ' unwanted' rules and with w eak enforcement would result 
in worsening the general compliance. It will maintain the existing room left to 
Member States (subsidiarity) as regards th e enforcement regime. The effectiveness of 
achieving the policy key-objectiv es would be overall lower than expected although 
higher than for base case scenario. The intervention will not be complex (proportionality) but may occur unenforceab le with regard to monitoring the 
compliance by self-employed, wh ich would be very difficult,  costly and inefficient. 
 
EN 49   EN This option increases significan tly administrative costs for private sector. The balance 
of impacts is negative. 
(3) Option B – changes the scope by includi ng only self-employed drivers performing 
international transport, who are in fact less affected by working time rules than 
'domestic' self-employed drivers. It does not solve the problem of low compliance and does not improve the effectiveness in achie ving policy objectives compared to the "no 
change" option. It leaves room to Memb er States (subsidiarity) as regards the 
enforcement regime. The complexity of in tervention is low but it causes adverse 
effects in terms of uneven conditions of competition between international and domestic self-employed drivers. The administ rative costs for businesses are the lowest 
of all options. The impacts are insignificant from the perspective of policy objectives, 
main problem to be solved and enforceability of the Directive. 
(4)
 Option C1 – provides only for legal clarification which will lead to reducing those 
'false' self-employed who misi nterpret the law. The impact of this action on reducing 
the phenomenon of 'false' self-employm ent and improving compliance level is 
minimal. Also the effectiveness and effici ency in achieving policy objectives does not 
significantly improve compared to base case scenario. This non-complex action 
(proportionality) provides for better understanding of the scope of the Directive leaving room to Member States  (subsidiarity) as regards the enforcement of the rules. 
The balance of impacts is slightly positive. 
(5)
 Option C2 (and option C3) – tackles almost en tirely the problem of both the definition 
of the mobile worker and the low compliance by introducing a better  definition as well 
as an effective enforcement regime. The e ffectiveness in reduci ng the phenomenon of 
'false' self-employed, and consequently in solving the compliance problem, is the 
highest of all options. This further leads to  improved effectiveness in achieving policy 
options. However, the relatively high enfo rcement costs to be borne by public sector 
and complexity of intervention bears the po ssibility of a risk of low proportionality 
compared to results achieved. Still, admini strative costs borne by private sector are 4 
times lower than in option A. The opti on imposes enforcement requirements on 
Member States that leave room for national decisions (in accordance with 
subsidiarity). The positive impacts are lowered by some additional costs. 
Conclusions 
From the above analysis it can be concluded that of the analysed options C2 is optimal. 
Options A, B, C1 do not solve the problem of low compliance and consequently do not lead 
to better achievement of policy objectives. Opti on C2 (followed by C3) is the most effective 
in addressing the problem and achieving polic y objectives, being at the same time complex 
with additional costs, but guaranteeing nearly full compliance. 
Therefore it is recommended that the EU inte rvention concerns clarifying the scope of the 
Directive and introducing administrative requ irements concerning the enforcement of the 
rules. 
The proposed alternative is thus option C2. This option means in a nutshell: 
 
EN 50   EN (1) a legal clarification of definitions providi ng a clear distinction between those who are 
and who are not in the scope of the Direct ive and ensuring that 'false' self-employed 
are covered by the Directive; 
(2) requirements imposed on Member States to establish an effective system of 
monitoring the compliance, to notify the Commission of the na tional enforcement 
arrangements, to ensure the assistance and a dvisory services to t hose concerned by the 
rules, to cooperate with other Member St ates and with the Commission in order to 
ensure a harmonized understanding and app lication of the rule s, to exchange 
information, experience and best practices; 
(3) commitment of the Commission to support the dialogue between Member States and 
the industry and enforcement authorities. 
This option imposes general enforcement require ments on Member States and highlights their 
responsibility for compliance (pro portionality) while leaving the particular solutions to the 
discretion of individual national decisions (subsidiarity). This will ensure that the enforcement regime is tailored to the existing national ar rangements and enforcemen t capabilities of each 
country while providing for common understa nding of the rules and harmonized general 
approach to their implementation. 
It is assumed that this option would en tail the following qualitative impacts: 
• a reduction of ‘false’ self-employed phenomenon and in a number of transport companies 
and drivers non complying with the rules re sulting from enhanced enforcement by MS, 
better clarity of provisions, improved responsib ility of Member States for monitoring 
compliance, raised corporate social  responsibility w ithin the sector, 
• improvement of an overall compliance rate in longer term, 
• eliminated distortions of competition betw een companies and drivers who comply and 
those who used to disobey the rules – resu lting from improving compliance discipline and 
better enforcement, 
• better working conditions for drivers who were  excluded (against their will or knowledge) 
from social protection measures  provided for in the Directiv e by their employers who used 
to disobey the rules and who star t to comply as a result of national enforcement actions and 
awareness campaigns carried out, 
• improved overall level of health and safe ty of drivers covere d by the Directive, 
• possible increase of turnover of genuine self -employed drivers as a result of additional 
need for outsourcing services due to e limination of ‘false’ self-employed, 
• possible increase of total employment in the se ctor resulting from the need for additional 
drivers in order to meet the unsatisfied ma rket demand connected with elimination of 
‘false’ self-employed and of non-complying mobile workers, 
• road safety slightly improved in longer te rm due to reduction of non-complying drivers, 
• no increase in transport costs a nd no affect on consumer prices, 
 
EN 51   EN • long term gains for transport companies resul ting from fewer work interruptions due to 
fewer accidents, better health of employees a nd less absenteeism, as well as less costs 
related to paid overtime, 
• no significant additional administ rative costs for private sector, 
• enforcement costs and efforts of public sect or tailored to the individual country’s 
enforcement and financial capacity, 
• improved cooperation between Member States  enforcement authorities and between 
Member States and the Commission in the fi eld of ensuring common understanding of the 
rules and harmonized approach to enforcement. 
The table below illustrates the summary of qua litative evaluation of each policy option from 
the perspective of contribution to attaining policy objectives. 
Table 4 – Summary of policy options assessment 
Policy option/ 
Policy 
objective Health & 
Safety of 
drivers Road safety Competition Compliance Enforcement 
cost 
 
A + / - = -  - - €€€ 
B + = - = € 
C1 + =  + + €€ 
C2 + + + growing  + + + + growing  €€ 
C3 + + + growing   + + + + growing  €€ 
8. MONITORING AND EVALUATION  
The Commission will continuously monitor the developments in the sector and evaluate on a 
regular basis the impact of the revised legislation. This will be done through: 
– Regular biennial repor ts from Member States on the implementation of the Directive, 
including the views of the industry and of enforcers on positive and negative aspects of 
implementation of the working time rules; 
– Communication by Member Stat es on their national arrange ments for monitoring the 
compliance; 
– Regular dialogue with Member St ates, industry representatives and social partners on the 
effects of the revised working time rules on the developments in the sector and on 
achievement of policy objectives; 
– Benchmarking to ensure an equitable im plementation of the rules throughout EU; 
 
EN 52   EN – Statistics on road safety, employment in the sector, market shares. 
 
EN 53   EN 9. ANNEXES 
ANNEX 1 – Assumptions 
The following assumptions have been ma de for the purpose of the analysis: 
– Modal shift -  due to the fragmented origins a nd destinations of short-medium 
distance road transport, no modal shift is li kely to happen for that  kind of service. 
Rail or air transport would not replace the service. Modal shift could be assumed for 
long distance service. Howe ver, the limited impact of  the adoption of the policy 
options on that segment of the market allows  to assume that no modal shift will occur 
– Self-employed workers wo rking on behalf of: large companies  - 70% of all self 
employed workers 
– Self employed workers performing  their activity as shippers: 30% of all self 
employed drivers 
– “False” self employed - 50% of self employed drivers working for large companies  
– Level of compliance with the Directive: 20%, this assumption is based on the 
analysis of the current situation with regard  to the quality of transposition (national 
transposing laws), compliance discipline  (behaviour of employers and mobile 
workers), and quality of enforcement regime (national systems and their effectiveness) 
–
 Passengers transport -  on the basis of the analysis of average weekly hours worked 
by self-employed drivers in passenger transpor t, no major impact is expected on this 
sector in result of limits imposed by the Directive. Self-employed drivers are currently working on average approximately  48 hours per week and a second driver 
is commonly used when night shifts are perf ormed. For this reas on, impact analysis 
has been carried out only with regard to freight transport. 
Source: Impact assessment concerning the scope of the working time directive 2002/15/EC with regard to self-
employed transport workers, Pricew aterhouseCoopers, February 2008. 
ANNEX 2 - Clusters of countries 
Name of the 
cluster Countries 
North  Denmark, Finland, Sweden 
Middle  Austria, Belgium, Germany ,Ireland, Lu xemburg, Netherlands, United Kingdom 
South France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain,  
NMS Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungar y, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia 
Latvia + Lithuania Latvia, Lithuania 
Main characteristics of countries  belonging to each cluster are: 
– North: 
 
EN 54   EN Structure of the freight transport market:  small share of self employed workers and large share 
of employment in the largest firms. Low share of international freight transport. 
Social aspects of the freight transport market : Self employed earn high incomes31 and 
experience a high job control, however they face a very high time pressure. 
– Middle:  
Structure of the freight transport market:  small share of self employed workers and large share 
of employment in the largest firms. Internationa l freight transport market share is higher than 
in other clusters, but is decreasing because of competition from new MSs. 
Social aspects of the freight transport market:  Self employed workers earn low incomes and 
experience a low job control. Control over working hours is high. 
– South+ NMS:  
Structure of the freight transport market:  large share of self empl oyed workers and small share 
of employment in the largest firms. Internatio nal freight transport market share is low but 
increasing (especially in New MSs becau se of low cost services provided). 
Social aspects of the freight transport market:  Self employed workers earn high incomes and 
experience a low job control. Control over worki ng hours is high. Self employed appear to be 
a very high risk category with  regard to overall fatigue. 
– Latvia+ Lithuania:  
Structure of the freight transport market : small share of self employed workers and small 
share of employment in the largest firms. Intern ational freight transport market share is high. 
Social aspects of the freight transport market:  Self employed workers earn high incomes and 
experience a low job control. Control over working hours is high. Self employed workers 
appear to be a very high risk cate gory with regard to overall fatigue. 
Source: Impact assessment concerning the scope of the working time directive 2002/15/EC with regard to self-
employed transport workers, Pricew aterhouseCoopers, February 2008. 
ANNEX 3 – Compliance costs  
Checking the “status” of self employed drivers 
The table below presents estimated costs for the inspection and the identification of the 
“false” self employed. 
                                                 
31 Source: TNO Report (2006) 
 
EN 55   EN Table 62: Estimation of cost of inspection to identify “false” self employed drivers to be 
performed under different targets (1'000 euros 2009 prices) 
Cost of inspections according to different targets  
('000 euros 2009 prices) 
Cluster Number of self 
employed 
drivers Target 
5% Target 
10% Target 
15% Target 
20% 
North 14.478 35 71 106 142 
Middle 95.885 235 470 705 940 
South + NMS 671.453 1.645 3.290 4.935 6.580 
Latvia + Lithuania 26.032 64 128 191 255 
EU – 25 807.848 1.979 3.958 5.937 7.917 
Source: PwC calculations on Eurostat (2007), ICF Consulting (2003) and TNO (2006) 
The calculations are based on the following assumptions:  
• The duration of a typical inspection  is unknown and it is likely to vary significantly 
depending on the place where it is performed. Ho wever, in order to estimate the costs, the 
following has been assumed: 
• 30 minutes for performing a check with info rmation available at desk: 20 minutes for 
analysing the available inform ation and 10 minutes for writ ing a report and uploading the 
results on the central database. 
• 40 minutes for performing a check at the pr emises of enterprises: 20 minutes for 
performing the control of contracts, 10 mi nutes for transportati on and planning the 
inspection and 10 minutes for writing a report and uploading the results on the central 
database. In this case several self employe d drivers can be checked, thus the average 
duration for a single check could be low but sl ightly higher than a check of the previous 
type. 
• 110 minutes for performing a check at the prem ises of self employed drivers: 20 minutes 
for arranging an appointment; 50 minutes for transportation; 30 minutes for performing the 
check on contracts and 10 minutes for writing a report and uploading the results on the central database. 
Based on this, the average duration of a check has been estimated to be 60 minutes. Hence an 
inspector can perfor m 1 check an hour. 
• Cost of an inspector : 40 euros/hour (2003 prices) including the equipment and the indirect 
costs.  
• Additional costs : 3 euros (2003 prices) per check due to the initial costs (legal and 
administrative preparations; initial training of in spection staff; training on use of databases, 
communications and software) and ongoing s upport costs for training, systems etc.32. 
                                                 
32 This analysis is based on the methodology from: ICF Consulting, “Costs-Benefit Analysis of Road 
Safety Improvements”, 2003 
 
EN 56   EN These costs were then projecte d to 2009 prices, considering the expected rate of inflation 
in EU-2533. Thus the average cost is 49 euros/check (2009 prices). 
                                                 
33 On the assumption that in the period 2003-2009 the average annual inflation rate in EU-25 is 2,2%. 
 
EN 57   EN Costs of setting up a new system of controls 
The following table shows the summary of costs to  be borne in EU-25 c ountries to establish a 
system of checks at interm odal freight terminals.  
Table 1 – Annual costs of establishing a system  of checks at intermodal freight terminals 
in EU25 
Annual cost by percent working days checked 
 (1000s €) 
  Categories of employees subject to 
controls Number 
of 
employees 
affected 
(1000s) Target 
 1% Target 
 2% Target 
 3% Target 
 4% 
Op. A Mobile workers and self em ployed 2.688 181.762 363.524 545.285 727.047 
Op. B Mobile workers and self employed 
drivers performing international 
transport 1.884 127.407 254.813 382.220 509.627 
Op. C.1 Mobile workers and "false" self 
employed that misinterpreted the 
law 1.973 133.383 266.766 400.149 533.532 
Op. C.2 Employed and "false" self em ployed 2.110 142.637 285.275 427.912 570.549 
Op. C.3 Employed and "false" self employed 
that misinterpreted the law / 
Employed and "false" self employed 1.973 / 
2.110 133.383 266.766 427.912 570.549 
Op. D Only mobile workers 1.830 123.694 247.387 371.081 494.775 
Op. E None 0 0 0 0 0 
Source: PwC calculations on Eurostat (2007), ICF Consulting (2003) and TNO (2006) 
To calculate these costs the followi ng assumptions have been made: 
• 25 minutes for performing a check at inte rmodal freight terminals:15 minutes for 
downloading the information from the tachog raph and performing the check of the worked 
time, 5 minutes for transportation and planni ng of the inspection and 5 minutes for writing 
a report and uploading the results on the central  database. In this case several drivers can 
be checked, thus the average duration of a si ngle check could be sl ightly lower than a 
check of the next type. 
• 55 minutes for performing a check at clients’  premises and at other places where the 
drivers commonly load and unload freight: 15 minutes for downloading the information 
from the tachograph and performing the cont rol of the worked time, 5 minutes for 
transportation and planning the inspection, 30 minutes for time wasted in waiting and 5 
minutes for writing a report and uploadi ng the results on the central database. 
Based on this, and assuming that an equal number of checks of the two types will be 
performed, the average duration of a single ch eck would be 40 minutes. Hence an inspector 
would be able to perform 1,5 check an hour. Ba sed on the unit costs the average cost for an 
inspection amounts to 33,80 euros (2009 prices). 
 
EN 58   EN It is also assumed that drivers (both mobile workers and self-employed) will work on average 
200 days a year once the Directiv e enters into force towards se lf-employed drivers too. Such 
assumptions make it possible to calculate the annual costs for checking 1%, 2%, 3% and 4% 
of drivers’ working days across the EU. 
Monitoring system and reporting by MS 
The following table shows the calculations for th e estimation of the total cost for reporting by 
MS. 
Table 2 – Estimation of two-yearly mo nitoring and reporting costs of MS 
  Time effort per 
report (man-
day) Labour cost per 
man-day (€)34 Cost per 
country report 
(€) Number of 
countries Total cost per 
cluster (€) 
North 238 3.574 3 10.721 
Middle 221 3.312 7 23.184 
South + NMS 124 1.864 13 24.273 
Latvia + Lithuania 15 
46 695 2 1.391 
EU 25         59.533 
Source: PwC elaboration on Eurostat Data(2007) 
The country reports consist of the following main activities: 
– Data collection from companies, self em ployed drivers and systems of controls; 
– Data input and elaboration; 
– Drafting of the report. 
The time effort needed is likely to be diffe rent for each activity and to vary country by 
country. However, we can assume that on aver age the effort for each activity might be 
appreciatively of 5 man-days. Thus, the effort  to prepare a country report would be of 15 
man-days. 
Costs of compliance by private sector 
The activities to be performed by enterprises and self employed drivers for being compliant to 
the WTD cover: 
– Reorganisation of work;. 
– Recording working time by drivers; 
– Elaboration and reportin g of data collected. 
The calculation of costs to be borne by private sector was based on assumption that cost of 
reorganisation of work is one-time cost whic h does not apply to self -employed (one-worker 
                                                 
34 Average labour cost per cluster has been elaborated on the basis of Eurostat data on hourly labour cost 
for the sector “Public administration and defence; compulsory social security” for the year 2006. 
 
EN 59   EN companies), and enterprises have already in curred these costs with  introduction of the 
Directive, hence they will not bear additional costs when hiring new drivers. 
As regards elaboration and reportin g of data collected it was a ssumed that this activity would 
require 2 minutes of work of  administrative employee per month per each newly employed 
driver. The method for calculating a dditional annual costs is following:  
Additional annual administrative cost = number of additional employed drivers * 2 minutes of 
labour/month * 12 months * hourly labour cost. 
The following table shows the summary of costs to  be borne by road tran sport enterprises to 
carry out the administrative obligations set by the Directive. 
Table 3 – Estimation of additional annual co sts for the activities of data collection, 
elaboration and reporting under different policy options (2009) 
  Additional 
employed drivers Reporting 
activity (hours) Labour cost per 
man-hour (€) Reporting 
activity cost (€) 
North 4.020 1.608 28,81 46.326 
Middle  24.750 9.900 26,79 265.225 
South + NMS 178.466 71.387 13,38 955.093 
Latvia + Lithuania 5.319 2.127 4,35 9.244 
EU 25 212.556 85.022   1.275.887 
Source: PwC calculations on Eurostat (2007)