The new rules – which made such stickers mandatory for all lorries travelling on French roads – came into force on January 1, although international vehicles were given until April 1 to comply.
Both ESTA and the IRU – the International Road Transport Union – have raised concerns about the new rules with Brussels arguing that they are impossible to implement and will do nothing to improve safety.
The rules say that all lorries and buses must be fitted with three stickers, 30 centimetres in size, one at the rear and one on each side of the vehicle. But transport companies have pointed out that this is impossible for large numbers of vehicles, such as those carrying wide or oversized loads, car transporters, low loaders and many more.
The issue was also raised with the Commission by two Dutch MEPs – Tom Berendsen and Annie Schreijer-Pierik – who asked whether the new rules were legal and whether they jeopardised European rules on the free movement of goods.
The urgency of the situation was underlined by the IRU who said it has received reports that some international transport operators have already been penalised in France, despite the grace period.
The outcome of the talks between the French Ministries of Transport and the Interior and the European Commission is not yet clear, but the IRU said that further information is expected before the end of the month.
ESTA Director Ton Klijn said: “With support from our friends and colleagues at the IRU we have made ESTA’s views very clear and we hope this situation can be resolved quickly and amicably. We are always happy to discuss measures to improve safety but impractical and unilateral actions like this by individual governments are not the way to deliver lasting and meaningful improvements.”
]]>To see the shortlist, go to the awards section of this website here
To register to attend, go here
]]>The ERRU register – the European Register of Road Transport Undertakings – contains Europe-wide records of violations of transport legislation and includes a penalty points system. If a transport operator collects too many penalty points, they risk losing their licence to operate.
Under the new system, every violation of road transport law will attract a number of penalty points. If a company’s points exceeds its limit – set according to the size of the company – it risks having its licence suspended or revoked. In addition, the legislation also applies to individual transport managers.
The long list of potential offences includes violations of the rules on driving and rest times, tachographs, working times, weight and dimensions, the technical condition of the vehicle, speed limits, driver competence and the transport of dangerous goods by road.
ESTA Director Ton Klijn said: “Within the ERRU there are three categories of violations, namely minor, medium and serious. The problem for abnormal transport is that for relatively minor offences the transport permit often becomes void and therefore offences can quickly fall into the highest category.
“For example, a small exceedance of the driving times in the permit already results in 12 penalty points. But for companies with 2 to 10 vehicles, the maximum number of penalty points in two years is 26. With a few fines you can quickly get over that limit and you are in the danger zone.”
Klijn said that ESTA strongly backs all measures to improve safety but added that as a result of the register, the abnormal transport sector risks being disproportionately and severely punished and companies will face a much higher risk of losing their permit than other operators.
The ERRU register was created by the European Commission to allow a better exchange of information between member states, so that the authorities can monitor whether road transport companies are complying with the rules. It was officially adopted in 2013, but its launch was delayed until this year at the request of several countries who argued that they were unprepared for its introduction.
In a statement, the European Commission said: “Undertakings that do not respect the rules when operating abroad will face the consequences in the member state where they are based. This creates fairer competition conditions in the road transport market.
“The set-up of the national registers and their interconnection are required under the legislation on the access to the profession of road transport undertakings (Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009).”
Ton Klijn continued: “The problem has already been discussed with IRU and the European Commission, but this has not yet led to a solution.
“ESTA will soon participate in further talks with the parties involved and the European Commission. Our aim is simply to try and achieve a more realistic approach to fines for breaches in regulations by abnormal transport operators in the set-up of the ERRU register.”
]]>The move was revealed at last week’s online ECOL Participants meeting and followed discussions at the most recent meeting of the ECOL Supervisory Board. The Board gave the go-ahead for ECOL to investigate the issue in more detail.
Following the Board meeting, ECOL informally contacted a number of leading industry companies to test their reaction. The idea received a positive response from the oil and gas sector in particular, notably Shell and Exxon Mobile, and ECOL experts are now drawing up more detailed plans.
ESTA Director Ton Klijn said: “Currently, rigger qualifications are often different in different companies and countries and it may be that ECOL can help create a common standard that would improve safety and efficiency.
“That is what we are currently investigating and we will be talking to those authorities who currently run rigger training to see if we can develop a common and acceptable Europe-wide approach.”
]]>In response, the IRU said: “The delays in the UK implementation timetable provide extra time to prepare the transport operators for the next steps…IRU will undertake a number of initiatives to organise additional guidance sessions from the UK and EU side and will keep members informed of further developments.”
Full details of the new timetable is on the UK Government website here.
Information from the IRU is here
]]>He joins two other senior industry speakers on the programme. Moritz Dickmann, managing director of Nöpel Group, will discuss the implications of reforms to VEMAGS transport permits while Garrick Nisbet, projects director at Notus Heavy Lift and lifting manager at the Hinkley Point C project in the UK, will report on recent heavy lifts and transport activities at the nuclear power project, including lifts by Sarens’ ‘Big Carl’ crane.
The event, which is free to attend, will also see the announcement of the winners in each of the ten categories of the 2021 ESTA Awards which are run jointly with International Cranes and Specialized Transport. For more information and to register go to:
www.khl-group.com/events/esta/ The full programme will take two hours.
]]>Final touches are being put to the long-awaited best practice guide on the safe use of mobile cranes on barges and work is also nearing completion on a guidance paper on mobile crane ground preparation for wind farm construction. Both papers are expected to be officially released before the second half of 2021. Work has also started on a new best practice guide on the use of mobile cranes in pile driving and extraction work.
The ICSA has seven crane user and manufacturer association members from Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and the USA. Further information can be found on the ESTA website or at www.icsa-crane.org
]]>The company’s training centre in Wolvertem, Belgium, received its ECOL Certificate at the end of last year following final approval from Lloyds Register, the body tasked with overseeing standards.
Sarens is the fourth ECOL training centre to be approved after Mammoet in the Netherlands, EUC Lillebælt in Denmark and Liebherr in Germany. Four more companies have so far announced their intention to set up ECOL training centres – Aertssen and Michielsens in Belgium plus Tadano Demag and Manitowoc in Germany. In addition, the German Genosk organisation is in talks to qualify its IHK apprentice training scheme under ECOL.
]]>The guide – which is available as a free download from the ESTA Website here, was published last year but ESTA feels the industry has been slow to recognise its importance.
David Collett, ESTA President and Managing Director of the Collett Group, said that ESTA does not have sufficient information to comment on the cause of individual incidents.
But he added: “It is patently clear that the whole industry would be both safer and more efficient if there was earlier and better communication along the supply chain and if the industry would adopt the measures contained in best practice guide.
“The wind industry is growing fast and becoming a major part of Europe’s energy mix – and the turbines themselves are becoming ever larger.
“As a result, there has never been a better time for the wind industry to improve its safety systems and practices during the construction, transport and installation of onshore projects. It can, literally, be a matter of life and death.”
The Best Practice Guide discussions were led by ESTA with the support of VDMA Power Systems, the part of the German Engineering Federation whose members include the major turbine manufacturers, and the crane manufacturers through FEM, the European Materials Handling Federation.
]]>Non-German transport companies fear that the changes will place them at a commercial disadvantage against their German rivals and that the new system will lead to increased bureaucracy and delays. In addition, permit costs in Germany look set to increase by 130 per cent or more in the wake of the controversial reforms.
VEMAGS is the German online system for the application and approval for large-scale and heavy transports in all 16 federal states. Debate about reforming the rules has been underway for many months. The latest changes came into force on January 1 this year but the impact is only now becoming apparent.
The German authorities started the process of VEMAGS reform to align both the processes and the rates charged for permits between the different Bundesländer, or states. They also wanted to counter what they called “permit tourism”. Because the time to award a permit varies from days to weeks, companies often send in applications to multiple authorities and accept the one from the authority that reacts the quickest.
Under the new rules, international transport companies without a branch office in Germany can only apply for a permit at one location – either at the loading place (if the route to the loading place does not require a permit) or at the border – and experts are concerned that some permit booking offices are going to be overwhelmed by the number of applications they will have to deal with. In contrast, German-based companies will have the advantage of being able to obtain permits from two sources – either from their company location or the location of the start of the transport.
Concerns about the changes have been raised by many members of ESTA some of whom also believe that the German authorities are exploiting current circumstances to increase prices and raise money.
ESTA Director Ton Klijn said: “The real question to ask is why this is such an issue in Germany compared with other countries? In Holland you can get most permits in 24 hours so why does it take up to 8 weeks in Germany? Quite understandably, the German authorities want to deal with the permit tourism issue, but they are planning changes that will cause great difficulties, rather than reducing the delays that are the cause of the problems in the first place.
“What is more, they are introducing these changes at the worst possible time for the industry and our clients when many are already dealing with the combined impact of the pandemic and Brexit.”
Originally, the German authorities also proposed to ban overseas transport companies – but not their German counterparts – from obtaining a long-term permit, or Dauergenehmigung, but that was withdrawn when some experts said the move was in clear breach of the EU’s single market rules.
Klijn added: “You could argue that this situation now is not as bad as we first feared but, it is still not good news. Brussels will not intervene on the issue of the increased costs, as that is a matter for the national authorities. But whether the new rules discriminate against non-German companies is something we will be watching very closely.
“It may be that the new rules work out fine, and that the German authorities put in the necessary resources to minimise delays. Or it may be that these new arrangements amount to a ‘de facto’ discrimination against non-German companies in which case we reserve the right to return to Brussels and raise this issue once more.”
A further concern is the impact on service companies that obtain permits on behalf of their clients. Under the new rules as currently written, they would have to register for every company separately on the VEMAGS site and they can only apply for a permit at the same place that the company they represent could apply – so for a non-German company that is only at the entry border.
Klijn continued: “This means the service companies can no longer use long-standing contacts in permitting offices near their own offices. Traditionally these permitting offices were well staffed and well informed because they handled a large stream of permits. The option of being able to apply at a near-by permit office is now only open for German companies, and that can be a big advantage.”
Klijn concluded: “This is a very important issue for our members. We will be asking them for detailed information about how the VEMAGS changes are working in practice to ensure that this is not a form of discrimination against non-German companies by the back door.”
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