[pic] | COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES |

Brussels, 15.9.2005

COM(2005) 430 final

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL

ON THE APPLICATION BY THE MEMBER STATES OF COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 95/50/EC ON UNIFORM PROCEDURES FOR CHECKS ON THE TRANSPORT OF DANGEROUS GOODS BY ROAD

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 3

2. BACKGROUND 3

3. DIRECTIVE 95/50/EC 4

4. REPORTS FROM THE MEMBER STATES 4

5. CALCULATION OF DATA 5

6. THE LEVEL OF CHECKS IN THE MEMBER STATES 5

7. THE PROPORTION OF TRANSPORT OPERATIONS INFRINGING THE LEGISLATION 6

8. TYPES OF INFRINGEMENTS 7

9. TYPES OF PENALTIES 8

10. CONCLUSIONS 8

ANNEX I TIME SERIES (1997-2002) OF THE NUMBER OF CHECKS, INFRINGEMENTS AND PENALTIES REGISTERED IN EACH MEMBER STATE 10

ANNEX II SUMMARY OF CHECKS, INFRINGEMENTS AND PENALTIES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION (1999-2002) 11

ANNEX III NUMBER OF CHECKS PER NUMBER OF JOURNEYS MADE BY VEHICLES TRANSPORTING DANGEROUS GOODS (%) 12

ANNEX IV NUMBER OF CHECKS AND PROPORTION OF FOREIGN VEHICLES CHECKED (1999-2002) 13

ANNEX V NUMBER OF INFRINGEMENTS / NUMBER OF CHECKS 14

ANNEX VI INFRINGEMENTS BY TYPE (%) 15

ANNEX VII PENALTIES BY TYPE (%) 16

INTRODUCTION

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

Directive 95/50/EC provides that each Member State has to send the Commission for each calendar year not later than twelve months after the end of that year a report on the application of this Directive[2]. The Directive also provides that the Commission has to send the European Parliament and the Council at least every three years a report on the application of the Directive by the Member States[3].

The report from the Commission is based on the annual reports received from the Member States. This is the second report on the application of Council Directive 95/50/EC in the Member States and it covers the years 1999-2002. The first report[4] covered the years 1997-1998.

The Commission feels that this report, which analyses two two-year periods, allows a meaningful analysis and justifies the time taken to produce it, since the first report covered only the first two years of the application of the Directive. Moreover, as the statistical classification (Annexes to the Directive) is to change from 2005[5]; the third report will cover the last two years of the current type of Annexes to the Directive.

BACKGROUND

Council Directive 94/55/EC of 21 November 1994 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road[6], as amended[7], introduced harmonised rules for the transportation of dangerous goods between the Member States as well as nationally within the Member States.

The technical annexes to Directive 94/55/EC are identical in terms of content to the technical annexes to the international ADR-agreement[8]. Therefore, Directive 94/55/EC transposes into Community law the technical provisions of the ADR, which lays down uniform rules for the safe international transport of dangerous goods by road. The added value of the Directive is that it also extends these rules to cover national traffic in order to harmonise across the Community the conditions under which dangerous goods are transported by road and thereby to improve, at the same time, road safety at national level.

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

DIRECTIVE 95/50/EC

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

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

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

REPORTS FROM THE MEMBER STATES

Not all Member States have sent reports for all years in the period 1999-2002, and some Member States have sent no reports.

Member States which submitted reports for all years in the period 1999-2002 | Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom |

Member States which submitted reports for part of the period 1999-2002 | Ireland (2002[9]), Portugal (2000, 2001, 2002) |

Member States which did not submit any reports for the period 1999-2002 | Greece, France, Luxembourg[10] |

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

The summary of the reports is given in Annexes I and II to this report. Annex I contains time series of the number of checks, infringements and penalties registered in each Member State from 1997 to 2002. Annex II contains information on the number of vehicles checked and the number and types of infringements, as well as the number and types of penalties, all classified geographically (i.e. whether the checked vehicle was registered in the Member State which performed the check or in another Member State or in a third country). Under the types of penalties, cases where the vehicle was not allowed to continue its journey until the infringement had been fully remedied were classified as warnings.

CALCULATION OF DATA

Member States were required to give their estimate of the amount of transportation of dangerous goods in tonnes or in tonnes-kilometres in their report. Actually, hardly any Member States provided this information, so a proportion of 6 % of all goods transported was used as a constant average value for estimating the amount of transported dangerous goods[11]. Furthermore, an average journey of 110 kilometres and an average load of dangerous goods of 10 tonnes were used in the calculations.

On the basis of these data the number of journeys made by vehicles transporting dangerous goods was calculated. This figure was correlated with the number of checks in the country to obtain information about the frequency of checks as a percentage of the number of checks per number of journeys (Annex III).

THE LEVEL OF CHECKS IN THE MEMBER STATES

One of the aims of the Directive is to further improve the level of safety by ensuring that a sufficient level of checks is carried out. In order to estimate the level of checks and to assess its development, the frequency of road checks in the Member States in the period 1999-2002 is compared, in a chart, with the frequency calculated for the period 1997-1998 (Annex III).

On basis of this chart it can be concluded that:

1) The frequency of checks in the European Union as a whole has decreased from 0.27 % (1997-1998) to 0.23 % (1999-2002).

2) In Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Austria and Sweden the frequency of checks in the period 1999-2002 is over 0.20 %, in Belgium, Netherlands, and Finland it is about 0.10 % and in the United Kingdom 0.05 %; in the other countries it is 0.02 % or even less. However, it should be noted that a significant proportion of the available enforcement capacity in the UK and the Netherlands is used to carry out checks at the premises, and these checks are also based on Article 6 of Directive 95/50/EC.

3) In the countries where the level of checks is highest, it is roughly 20 times higher than in the countries where the level is lowest.

It should be noted that the figures were calculated assuming that for a Member State that did not submit a report the annual number of checks is equal to zero. However, even if the data on journeys in the missing reports are not taken into consideration, the picture does not change radically, mainly because the missing reports represent the same amount of journeys (about 20 %) both in the period 1997-1998 and in 1999-2002.

In order to assess the equivalence of checks as between domestic and foreign operators, the checks performed by each Member State and the proportion of foreign vehicles checked are presented in Annex IV. This proportion does, indeed, vary considerably. However, as the largest proportion of foreign vehicles checked are in the transit countries, the proportions still seem reasonable taking into account geographical positions. Therefore it may be concluded that there is no indication that the checks are not balanced in this respect.

THE PROPORTION OF TRANSPORT OPERATIONS INFRINGING THE LEGISLATION

The proportion of transport operations infringing the legislation was calculated by relating all infringements (whether concerning the vehicle, the driver, the documentation or the transported goods) to the checked vehicle and assuming that there was only one infringement per vehicle. As there may have been more than one infringement per vehicle, this may give an artificially high figure. The information on the proportion of infringements in the period 1999-2002 has been put into a chart, together with the information for the period 1997-1998, in Annex V.

On the basis of this chart it can be concluded that:

1) the ratio of the number of infringements to the number of checks in the European Union as a whole has increased from 0.22 (1997-1998) to 0.26 (1999-2002);

2) depending on the country, the ratio of the number of infringements to the number of checks in the period 1999-2002 ranged from 0.10 to over 1.00;

3) in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Finland and Sweden the ratio of the number of infringements to the number of checks in the period 1999-2002 is significantly higher than the EU average (0.26), whereas in the other countries it is about 0.10 – 0.20.

The figures clearly show that the road checks are necessary and constitute an important tool for improving safety in the transport of dangerous goods.

When comparing the frequency (proportion) of checks (Annex III) with the proportion of infringements (Annex V), no correlation can be found.

TYPES OF INFRINGEMENTS

The types of infringements are categorised using the 13 harmonised codes in Annex II to the Directive. In addition, a further code 14 (Other/Unknown) is used for infringements which do not correspond to any of the 13 defined categories. Consequently, the 14 codes used are the same as in the previous report:

1. Goods not authorised for transport;

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

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

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

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

6. Vehicles without safety instructions or with inappropriate ones;

7. Inappropriate vehicle or packaging;

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

9. Vehicles lacking fire extinguishers;

10. Vehicles or packages without regulation danger labels;

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

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

13. Overfilling of tank;

14. Other infringements.

The figures on infringements for the period 1999-2002 are given in Annex II and in the graph in Annex VI, which also illustrates the figures for the period 1997-1998, for the purposes of comparison.

Numerically, the most significant infringements (more than 5 % of the total) in the period 1999-2002 are the following:

5. Vehicles lacking appropriate orange panels or with non-regulation orange panels (11 %);

11. Vehicles lacking transport/accompanying documents, or with particulars relating to the dangerous goods on board which are not in compliance with the regulations (13 %);

14. Other infringements (58 %).

On the basis of these results, it may be concluded, with even more evidence than in the previous report, that not all the infringement codes in Annex II to the Directive are appropriate; in fact, the largest proportion of infringements is classified as "other infringements" and has also increased from 44 % (1997-1998) to 58 % (1999-2002). This is due in part to the fact that many points in the checklist in Annex I to the Directive and used by the enforcing authorities are not taken into account in the infringement codes. An example of this is that, when checking the equipment of the vehicle and the equipment for the driver, only the absence of fire extinguishers covered by a harmonised code; thus, all other faults have to be classified as "other infringements". It seems that some infringements of the code never occur at all, e.g. overfilling of tank. On basis of this, consideration has been given to amending Annexes I and II to the Directive.

TYPES OF PENALTIES

The Member States use four different kinds of penalties: warning, fine, prosecution and prison sentence.

The most commonly used penalties are imposed directly by the enforcement authorities. These include an oral or written warning, to which may be added a ban on continuing the journey until the infringement has been corrected, and a fine.

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

The fine is the most common penalty in use and represents 69 % of the penalties imposed. Ranked second are warnings, with or without required corrective action (30 %). Prosecution has been reported for 1 % of the cases, whilst prison sentences seem not to occur at all. These proportions, for the period 1999-2002, are shown in the table in Annex II and in the graph in Annex VII.

Annex VII illustrates also the figures for the period 1997-1998. Compared to that period, in 1999-2002 warnings increased by 5 % and both fines and prosecutions decreased, respectively by 1 % and 3 %.

Statistics on penalties show that most infringement cases are deemed not too serious, since prosecutions are rare; on the other hand, about two thirds are deemed sufficiently serious to warrant a fine.

CONCLUSIONS

Although most of the Member States performed roadside checks on the transport of dangerous goods in the period 1999-2002, the frequency of checks varies considerably between Member States. Some Member States performed no checks, or at least have not sent reports of any checks to the Commission. The frequency of checks in the European Union as a whole has decreased.

Justification for checks is clearly seen in the proportion of vehicles found during checks to be infringing the legislation: the ratio of the number of infringements to the number of checks in the European Union as a whole has increased from 0.22 (1997-1998) to 0.26 (1999-2002). This clearly shows that the frequency of checks ought to be higher in some countries, even if no direct correlation between the frequency of checks and the number of infringements has been found.

The most common infringements are lack of transport documents concerning the load of dangerous goods and lack of orange panels showing that the vehicle is transporting dangerous goods. On the other hand, many categories of infringements hardly ever occur. The majority of infringements were classified under "Others", owing to the incompatibility between the checklist used by the enforcement authorities and the harmonised codes. This fact alone justifies the modification of both lists as from 2005 and the amendments to Annexes I and II to Directive 95/50/EC[12].

The most common penalty was a fine followed by a warning, which may have been supplemented by a ban on continuing the journey unless the infringement was corrected.

On the basis of this report the Commission stresses that road checks are an effective tool in revealing the problems connected with the safety of the transport of dangerous goods and, indirectly, in improving it. However, checks conducted in premises by some Member States are obviously an equally effective way of enforcement, although this is not apparent from the annexes to this report. Finally, the Commission would like to point out to the Member States that the harmonised infringement codes should be used in the reports and that the reports should be sent to the Commission by all Member States.

ANNEX I TIME SERIES (1997-2002) OF THE NUMBER OF CHECKS, INFRINGEMENTS AND PENALTIES REGISTERED IN EACH MEMBER STATE

No. OF VEHICLES CHECKED | 509973 | 122696 | 68081 | 4682 | 705432 | 100,00 |

No. OF INFRINGEMENTS | 90545 | 27797 | 24115 | 42578 | 185035 | 100,00 |

1. Goods not authorized | 284 | 23 | 25 | 455 | 787 | 0,43 |

2. Absence of consignor's declaration | 1086 | 181 | 161 | 495 | 1923 | 1,04 |

3. Leaks | 104 | 33 | 40 | 458 | 635 | 0,34 |

4. No type-approval certificate | 606 | 77 | 101 | 1399 | 2183 | 1,18 |

5. No orange panels | 10887 | 3301 | 2346 | 4123 | 20657 | 11,16 |

6. No safety instructions | 1679 | 513 | 719 | 2591 | 5502 | 2,97 |

7. Inappropriate vehicle or packaging | 986 | 143 | 196 | 1493 | 2818 | 1,52 |

8. No vocational training certificate | 2193 | 509 | 545 | 1254 | 4501 | 2,43 |

9. No fire extinguishers | 1722 | 480 | 751 | 4210 | 7163 | 3,87 |

10. No danger labels | 3280 | 751 | 389 | 2163 | 6583 | 3,56 |

11. No transport documents | 13268 | 3570 | 2828 | 5034 | 24700 | 13,35 |

12. Not covered by agreement | 96 | 4 | 5 | 284 | 389 | 0,21 |

13. Overfilling of tank | 221 | 9 | 27 | 17 | 274 | 0,15 |

14. Other | 54133 | 18203 | 15982 | 18602 | 106920 | 57,78 |

No. OF PENALTIES | 57660 | 17581 | 16053 | 6057 | 97351 | 100,00 |

Warning | 13102 | 5672 | 5154 | 5422 | 29350 | 30,15 |

Fine | 43671 | 11853 | 10850 | 595 | 66969 | 68,79 |

Prosecution | 887 | 56 | 49 | 40 | 1032 | 1,06 |

Prison sentence | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0,00 |

Not known | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0,00 |

ANNEX III

NUMBER OF CHECKS PER NUMBER OF JOURNEYS MADE BY VEHICLES TRANSPORTING DANGEROUS GOODS (%)

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ANNEX IV NUMBER OF CHECKS AND PROPORTION OF FOREIGN VEHICLES CHECKED (1999-2002)

Country | Country of check | Other EU | Non-EU | Not known | Total Number | % of Checks on Foreign Vehicles |

BELGIUM | 7229 | 1341 | 67 | 1677 | 10314 | 13,65 |

DENMARK | 685 | 100 | 23 | 5 | 813 | 15,13 |

GERMANY | 290688 | 92240 | 55271 | 0 | 438199 | 33,66 |

GREECE | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | / |

SPAIN | 126663 | 17102 | 2279 | 0 | 146044 | 13,27 |

FRANCE | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | / |

IRELAND | 428 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 435 | 1,61 |

ITALY | 9575 | 212 | 103 | 0 | 9890 | 3,19 |

LUXEMBOURG | 475 | 824 | 37 | 0 | 1336 | 64,45 |

NETHERLANDS | 5229 | 2869 | 402 | 3000 | 11500 | 28,44 |

AUSTRIA | 13838 | 5332 | 7827 | 0 | 26997 | 48,74 |

PORTUGAL | 298 | 61 | 4 | 0 | 363 | 17,91 |

FINLAND | 5481 | 161 | 1073 | 0 | 6715 | 18,38 |

SWEDEN | 23869 | 1435 | 906 | 0 | 26210 | 8,93 |

UNITED KINGDOM | 25515 | 1012 | 89 | 0 | 26616 | 4,14 |

EU | 509973 | 122696 | 68081 | 4682 | 705432 | 27,04 |

ANNEX V

NUMBER OF INFRINGEMENTS / NUMBER OF CHECKS

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ANNEX VI INFRINGEMENTS BY TYPE (%)

1. Goods not authorised |

2. Absence of consignor's declaration |

3. Leaks |

4. No type-approval certificate |

5. No orange panels |

6. No safety instructions |

7. Inappropriate vehicle or packaging |

8. No vocational training certificate |

9. No fire extinguishers |

10. No danger labels |

11. No transport documents |

12. Not covered by agreement |

13. Overfilling of tank |

14. Other |

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ANNEX VII PENALTIES BY TYPE (%)

I. Warning |

II. Fine |

III. Prosecution |

IV. Prison sentence |

V. Not known |

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[1] OJ No L 249, 17.10.1995, p. 35, as last amended by Commission Directive 2004/112/EC of 13 December 2004 adapting to technical progress Council Directive 95/50/EC (OJ No L 367, 14.12.2004, p. 23)

[2] Article 9(1) thereof

[3] Article 9(2) thereof

[4] COM(2000) 517 final, 06.09.2000

[5] Commission Directive 2004/112/EC of 13 December 2004 adapting to technical progress Council Directive 95/50/EC (OJ No L 367, 14.12.2004, p. 23)

[6] OJ No L 319, 12.12.1994, p. 7, Annexes A and B to it published in OJ No L 275, 28.10.1996

[7] Directive last amended by Commission Directive 2004/111/EC of 9 December 2004 adapting to technical progress Council Directive 94/55/EC (OJ No L 365, 10.12.2004, p. 25)

[8] European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road concluded at Geneva on 30 September 1957, as amended, the latest version being the 2005 version.

[9] Ireland implemented the Directive only as from 2001.

[10] Luxembourg only sent summary data regarding the total number of checks and infringements registered.

[11] The data concerning all goods transported come from the statistical handbook "2004 EU Energy and Transport in Figures", issued by Eurostat. The data on Sweden and the United Kingdom, available only for the national operators, were arranged, in order to consider all the carriers, assuming that the national carriers transported 70% of the total amount of goods in ton-km.

[12] Commission Directive 2004/112/EC of 13 December 2004 adapting to technical progress Council Directive 95/50/EC (OJ No L 367, 14.12.2004, p. 23)