REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 70/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 January 2012 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road
Date: 2015-01-26
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU Member State, Eurostat, access to EU information, administrative formalities, carriage of goods, data collection, disclosure of information, road transport, simplification of formalities, statistical method, transport statistics













EUR-Lex - 52015DC0017 - EN











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52015DC0017

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 70/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 January 2012 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road /* COM/2015/017 final */









REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL
on the implementation of Regulation
(EU) No 70/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 January
2012 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road
CONTENTS
1............ INTRODUCTION.. 3
1.1......... Aim of the report 3
1.2......... Background: the legal
framework. 3
1.3......... Policy context 3
1.4......... Coverage of Member
States and other countries. 3
2............ IMPLEMENTATION OF THE
REGULATION.. 4
2.1......... Compliance with legal
obligations. 4
2.2......... Data collection methods
used. 4
2.3......... Administrative burden. 4
2.4......... Administrative burden
reduction and simplification. 5
2.5......... Data validation and
quality of the statistical data sent 5
2.5.1...... Micro-data validation and
time series checks. 5
2.5.2...... Benchmarking the results
with other statistics. 6
2.6......... Methodological support 6
3............ STATISTICAL RESULTS. 7
3.1......... Trends in road freight
transport in the EU.. 7
3.1.1...... Development of road freight
transport in the EU.. 7
3.1.2...... Cabotage. 7
3.2......... Publication of the data  8
3.2.1...... Eurobase tables. 8
3.2.2...... Publications. 8
4............ PROPOSALS FOR FURTHER
DEVELOPMENTS. 9
4.1......... New challenges. 9
4.2......... Proposals for developing
the legal basis. 9
5............ CONCLUSIONS. 10

1.                      
 INTRODUCTION
1.1.                
Aim of the report

Article 7 of the Regulation on
statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road[1] requires
the Commission to submit a report on its implementation to the European
Parliament and the Council by 31 December 2014. 
This report meets that requirement. It outlines
the background, policy context and coverage of the legislation, and discusses its
implementation, the statistical results and their publication. It then outlines
possible future developments and draws the conclusion that the Regulation has improved
data quality and timeliness.

1.2.                
Background: the legal framework

Regulation (EU) No 70/2012 is a recast of Council
Regulation (EC) No 1172/98 of 25 May 1998 and subsequent amendments which aimed
to consolidate the legal basis for road transport data collection and bring it into
line with the Lisbon Treaty by delegating to the Commission the power to adopt
non-legislative acts of general application to supplement or amend certain
non-essential elements of a legislative act. It provides a legal basis for the
collection of a wide range of data on road freight transport. In addition, the
provision of road freight survey micro-data to Eurostat, ensures quality and
comparability of statistical information produced.
Regulation (EU) Nº 70/2012 aims to ensure that the
Commission, other EU institutions and national governments are provided with
comparable, reliable, harmonised, regular and comprehensive statistical data on
the scale and development of the carriage of goods by road. These data are
needed for framing, monitoring and evaluating EU policy. 
Member States send the information to Eurostat in the
form of micro-data: this allows Eurostat, subject to safeguards on
confidentiality, to provide users with statistical tables containing many
different combinations of variables.
Regulation (EU) No 70/2012 was designed to limit the
burden on transport enterprises to a minimum. The data collection is based on a
sample survey. Information is thus requested only for a sample of transport
vehicles, and for a short time (generally a week). Member States can also exclude
smaller vehicles from the survey.[2]

1.3.                
Policy context

Developing a common transport policy requires in-depth
knowledge of the scale and developments in road freight transport.
The data’s policy relevance is very
high: in the White Paper Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area —
Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system,[3] ten
goals were set for a competitive and resource-efficient transport system (as benchmarks
for achieving the 60 % greenhouse gas emission reduction target). Detailed
road freight transport statistics are needed to monitor progress in achieving
some of these goals (e.g. the aim to shift 30 % of road freight transport
activity over distances of more than 300 km to other modes of transport by
2030). Recent policy documents such as the Commission’s Report on the State
of the Union Road Transport Market[4]
also make extensive use of road freight transport statistics. To carry out its tasks
under the common transport policy, the Commission needs comparable, reliable,
synchronised, regular and comprehensive statistical data on the scale and
developments in the carriage of goods by road by vehicles registered in the EU,
and on the degree of utilisation of these vehicles.
The data collected under the Regulation
are also extremely valuable for professional organisations, transport
companies, researchers and modellers in the field of road transport, as an
in-depth knowledge of the market helps improve business competitiveness in the
sector.

1.4.                
Coverage of Member States and other countries

The Regulation applies directly and in
its entirety to all Member States. It does not have to be transposed into
national legislation. It requires all Member States to provide data. Under Article
1(3), Malta is the only exception to this rule, given the low number of goods
road transport vehicles registered in Malta licensed to engage in the
international carriage of goods by road. The collection of high-quality transport
data from the Maltese fleet would impose a disproportionate burden on Maltese
hauliers as they would have to participate in the surveys more often than their
counterparts in other countries.
The non-EU countries Norway and Switzerland also fully participate in the collection of road freight transport statistics
along the lines of Regulation (EU) Nº 70/2012. The two EEA countries Iceland and Liechtenstein are currently exempted from the obligation to collect road freight
transport statistics according to the Regulation due to the limited number of
their respective fleet engaged in international road transport.
EU Candidate countries do not
participate in this data collection.

2.                      
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REGULATION
2.1.                
Compliance with legal obligations

Compliance with the Regulation’s
requirements on data provision is generally good. All Member States deliver the
requested datasets, with few delays. This ensures the production of high-quality
and reliable statistics on road freight transport in Europe.

2.2.                
Data collection methods used 

The Regulation provides a common framework to ensure harmonised data
collection and comparability of results. Eurostat collects information on
national data collection methods (the use of registers, sampling methodology,
coverage, etc.) every three years and publishes it in Methodologies
used in surveys of road freight transport in Member States and candidate countries.

2.3.                
Administrative burden 

The Regulation
was designed to keep the burden on Member States low. In most reporting
countries, existing processes met the data collection requirements and no special
measures had to be taken. Eurostat collected information from reporting
countries to assess the burden on respondents of implementing the Regulation.
Few
Member States were able to assess the burden precisely, but the following
conclusions can be drawn.
-         
for regular data provision, almost all countries
that responded consider the workload acceptable.
-         
the burden of data collection differs greatly across
countries, mainly depending on the national data compilation systems available.
Countries that developed electronic data collection systems reduced the burden
on respondents and the data processing burden. From the information provided,
it appears that:
o  
the average time needed by respondents to report
data for one vehicle with journeys during the survey period was estimated at
around 40 minutes (ranging from 5 minutes to 2 hours);
o  
the average time needed by respondents to report
data for one vehicle with no journeys during the survey period was estimated at
around 7 minutes (ranging from 3 minutes to 15 minutes);
The
burden to both National Statistical Institutes and respondents of conducting the
survey required under the Regulation is offset by the added value of the
resulting statistics. In particular:
-         
Eurostat manages the confidential national
micro-data provided by each Member State and compiles detailed national data
(D-tables). These tables allow each reporting country to obtain complete
statistical information on all road freight operations in their country,
including trucks registered in other EU countries. The implementation of this
Regulation and the service provided by Eurostat prevents duplication of data
collection at national level on foreign trucks.
-         
there is strong demand from the reporting countries
for the statistics produced, as the survey is proving to be very useful for
monitoring the road freight market in Europe.
-         
collecting and managing information at
micro-data level means it can be used flexibly to meet specific EU policy needs
for a range of statistics promptly, and without extra effort at national level,
e.g. to draft reports or evaluate legislation and policy targets. In practice,
examples include the production of statistics by distance class, on empty runs or
on cabotage.

2.4.                
Administrative burden reduction and
simplification

Simplifying
and reducing the burden of data collection and reporting is one of Eurostat’s continuing
concerns. Eurostat is acting on the Member States’ feedback, in collaboration
with national statistical institutes, by:
1.      providing tools (e.g. WebILSE) to facilitate reporting of detailed
regional (NUTS 3) data;
2.      developing automated micro-data transmission and validation tools
and routines, to provide feedback to the Member States on data quality and
specific errors on each dataset;
3.      promoting and helping to set up electronic questionnaires and
web-based reporting systems at national level;
4.      holding regular meetings of national experts from all Member States
to exchange good practice and discuss data quality, problems and solutions.

2.5.                
Data validation and quality of the statistical
data sent
2.5.1.          
Micro-data validation and time series checks

While Member States are responsible for the
quality of the conduct of the road freight survey, Eurostat is working to detect
errors in the data sent and to maintain a high-performing, reliable IT system
for data validation and processing. Eurostat gives regular feedback to the
Member States on issues that may require further investigation.
Reporting countries make every reasonable
effort to address data errors. Eurostat’s validation procedure includes steps
to validate micro-data detecting errors in codes used, format and out of range
values. Additional time series checks for national, international and total
transport are made for both quarterly and annual data:
-         
micro-data: to help them produce datasets that
are as error-free as possible, reporting countries
receive a validation report for each batch of data sent, containing details at
micro-data level to enable the errors detected to be corrected more easily.
This follows an iterative process until all errors have been corrected. Eurostat also adapts its validation rules to meet changing needs
and to ensure high and enhanced data quality and consistency.
-         
time series: Eurostat considers it extremely
important to identify outliers in time series before publishing the data, as
road freight statistics are used in various Commission reports and for drawing
conclusions on developments in the road haulage market. It pays specific
attention to having reporting countries confirm trends if significant
variations are observed. If necessary, revised datasets are submitted or
explanations are provided on underlying reasons for serious time series
variations.
Overall,
all reporting countries revise data and correct errors detected.

2.5.2.          
Benchmarking the results with other statistics

European road freight statistics
collected under the Regulation are based on the vehicles’ country of
registration. Each reporting country collects a sample of movements, inside and
outside its territory, by lorries registered in the country, but does not
collect information on transport by foreign hauliers within its territory.
Since no information is collected twice by different countries about the same
operation, the quality of the results cannot be checked using mirror checks. The
quality of road freight statistics can only be checked using other
complementary data sources or surveys.
CAFT is a roadside survey (every five or
six years) at the Swiss borders. It is very different comparing to the survey
based on Regulation (EU) 70/2012 and with very little overlapping. Eurostat, on
the basis of a number of assumptions, has compared its regulatory data on road
freight transport with CAFT (the Cross-Alpine Freight Transport survey) data.
With the exception of moderate outliers, probably due to low sample sizes and
survey method, there is a good fit between the data sources, highlighting the
quality of the data sent under the Regulation. Eurostat intends to repeat this exercise
in future to ensure the consistency and quality of the statistics produced.

2.6.                
Methodological support 

Eurostat
provides continuous methodological and technical support to the Member States
to implement the Regulation and an effort is made to maintain a high-quality
data and metadata information system.
Eurostat
produced two manuals containing methodological guidance for reporting
countries:
-         
Road freight transport methodology, which is the basis for compiling road freight statistics in Member
States, candidate countries and European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
countries; and
-         
Methodologies used in surveys of road freight
transport in Member States and candidate countries.
These manuals are updated
regularly to reflect developments in road freight data collection. The latest
versions can be downloaded from the Eurostat website.[5]

3.                      
STATISTICAL RESULTS
3.1.                
Trends in road freight transport in the EU
3.1.1.          
Development of road freight transport in the EU

Road
transport remains the most important mode of goods transport. In terms of
tonne-km, it accounts for more than 70% of all inland transport modes, this
share being relatively stable over the last decade. Nevertheless, the recent
economic crisis had a significant impact on road freight transport in Europe. In 2012, road freight transport activity in the EU measured in tonne-km was about
12% below its peak in 2007.
National
transport by domestic hauliers represents almost two thirds of total freight
transport by road. National transport performed by foreign hauliers accounts
for about 1.5% of total road freight transport and for about 2.0% of total
national road freight transport. The cabotage penetration rate, which measures
the share of foreign hauliers in the national road freight transport market for
hire and reward, was 2.3% in 2012. It has recently grown somewhat, in
particular following the lifting of transitional restrictions on hauliers from
the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007.
International
transport’s share (including cross-trade transport) increased over the last
decade from 30 % of total road freight transport in 2004 to 33 % in
2012, reflecting the effect of the single market in the European Union. Some
78% of international transport is carried out by hauliers registered in one of
the two countries between which goods are moved. The remaining 22 % is
carried out by hauliers from a third European country as part of cross-trade
operations, the fastest-growing market segment over the past decade.
In 2012, ‘hire and reward’ operations
(carriage for remuneration) accounted for 85 % of total road freight
transport, the remaining 15 % being ‘own account operations’.
All distance classes fell between 2008
and 2012, with the shorter and longer distances most affected: in 2012,
transport in tonne-kilometres for movements under 150 kilometres was 15 %
below the 2008 level while that for movements over 1 000 kilometres was 14 %
down. Furthermore, 56% of freight journeys (in terms of tonne-kilometres) are
over 300 kilometres. EU transport policy aims at shifting 30% of road transport
operations over these longer distances by 2030 to rail and waterborne
transport, and more than 50% by 2050.
In terms of tonnes transported, the
major product groups carried in the Member States were mining and quarrying
products (26 % of the total in 2012), other non-metallic mineral products
(14 %), food, beverages and tobacco (12 %) and agricultural products
(9 %). The major product groups in tonne-kilometres were food, beverages
and tobacco (17 % of the total), agricultural products (11 %), other
non-metallic mineral products (8 %), chemicals and metal ores (8 %
each), metal products and wood products (7 % each). 

3.1.2.          
Cabotage

Cabotage,
i.e. national transport for hire and reward carried out by foreign hauliers, is
currently once more in the spotlight of EU road transport policy. The existing
rules on cabotage, set out in Regulation (EC) No 1072/2009,[6] are being evaluated and their regulatory fitness is being assessed.
Commission work in this field is largely based on data collected under
Regulation (EU) Nº 70/2012. At the same time, the subject of cabotage is
gaining in political importance in a number of Member States, as recent
discussions in the Working Group on road freight transport statistics have
shown. Some professional associations consider the level of cabotage to be higher
than is reflected in Eurostat’s official statistics, although there is
currently no statistical evidence to support this claim.
Despite
cabotage’s relatively small share of road transport operations overall, there
is a need to further improve the quality of the relevant statistics. The 2014
Working Group on road freight statistics concluded that improving the overall
quality of the survey (by increasing the response rate, enhancing the quality of
registers, better sampling, improving data transmission tools, etc.) would ultimately
improve the accuracy also of cabotage data. Eurostat will follow political
developments in this field closely and re-evaluate the statistical situation
accordingly. Eurostat will also continue to publish data on the cabotage
penetration rate to support the debate.

3.2.                
Publication of the data 
3.2.1.          
Eurobase tables

Aggregated data are loaded into
Eurobase, Eurostat’s reference database, as soon as they have passed validation
checks. Users may thus obtain detailed statistical tables under Commission
Regulation (EC) Nº 6/2003 concerning the dissemination of statistics on the
carriage of goods by road, based on data sent under Regulation (EU) Nº 70/2012,
covering the period from 1999 onwards. The set of metadata available in
Eurobase is regularly updated to reflect the latest methodological developments
in the various reporting countries.

3.2.2.          
Publications

Eurostat also produces articles in the
series Statistics Explained, covering the following topics (see related
links):
•                                                               
General
trends in road freight transport 
•                                                               
Road
freight transport by vehicle characteristics 
•                                                               
Road
freight transport by journey characteristics
•                                                               
Road
freight transport by type of goods
•                                                               
Road
freight transport statistics – cabotage 
These articles are updated annually,
each time the data collection is finalised for a given reference year.

4.                      
PROPOSALS FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
4.1.                
New challenges

Efforts
to reduce the burden on respondents while increasing the response rate and data
quality will continue.
Eurostat
and the Member States have already identified several new fields of action,
such as:
-           
developing the existing data reporting mechanisms
to enable respondents to provide more data of a higher quality while reducing the
reporting burden and cost: some reporting countries have already started to
introduce new standards such as the XML format, allowing data to be sent faster
while increasing its consistency and reliability;
-           
using electronic toll systems to complement and
benchmark survey results and improve data quality;
-           
further exploiting available data to model transport
flows and set parameters useful for transport policy and modelling, such as
average load factors by transport type, or distance class;
-           
making the survey results more useful for evaluating
market opening, transport efficiency, road transport market trends and the modal
split;
-           
making the survey results more useful for producing
more detailed statistics on greenhouse gas emissions from road transport.

4.2.                
Proposals for developing the legal basis

While Regulation (EU) No 70/2012 provides a
good basis for evaluating the current road freight transport market, ways of
addressing new data needs arising from policy developments without
significantly increasing the reporting burden have been identified. They may be
discussed with Member States in future Working Group meetings.
This may include:
-         
a data collection on energy consumption in road
freight transport: data collection of this kind, already carried out by some
Member States, may initially be introduced on a voluntary basis and at an
aggregate level (on an annual basis); it would allow more precise assessment of
the impact of road freight transport on the production of greenhouse gas emissions;
-         
mandatory collection of data on ‘empty
journeys’: this is currently optional under the Regulation, and not all
countries report empty vehicle-kilometres; making it mandatory would allow
better assessment of the energy efficiency and operational efficiency of the EU’s
road freight transport sector.

5.                      
CONCLUSIONS

Implementation
of Regulation (EU) No 70/2012 has had a broadly positive impact, enabling
rapid production of comparable, high-quality results.
Eurostat
makes considerable efforts to help Member States implement the Regulation and produce
high-quality statistics. It has developed an information system, and introduced
communication methods that minimise the data management burden for the
reporting countries. It is continuously adapting its validation rules to make
them more practical and efficient for data checking and processing and so help Member
States reduce the reporting burden of both respondents and administrations.
The
Regulation has proven indispensable for producing national and EU road freight
statistics and avoiding duplication of work. The statistics are regularly used in
monitoring and assessing road freight transport policies at national and EU
level. Publishing the data has raised their visibility and provided a better return
on the investment of resources.
[1] Regulation (EU) No 70/2012 of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 18 January 2012 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of
goods by road. OJ L 32, 3.2.2012.
[2] Each Member State may exclude road transport vehicles with a load
capacity or maximum permissible weight below a certain limit from the scope of the
Regulation. For single motor vehicles, the limit may not exceed a load capacity
of 3.5 tonnes or maximum permissible weight of 6 tonnes.
[3] COM(2011) 144, 28.3.2011.
[4] COM(2014) 222, 14.4.2014.
[5] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/transport/publications
[6] OJ L 300, 14.11.2009, p. 72.