Technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Community

This Commission presents this report in accordance with Directive 2000/30/EC which provides that every two years Member States must report on the number of commercial vehicles checked over the previous two years, broken down into seven classes listed in the Directive and by country of registration, and the items checked and deficiencies discovered. This information must be forwarded to the European Parliament. The Directive lists 12 points that may be checked. Non-compliance with the points checked and any ban on vehicles showing serious deficiencies should be mentioned in the inspection reports. The Directive also requires the Commission to report to the Council on the application of the Directive, using the data received from Member States, and summarise the results. This report is the second such Commission report on the application of Directive 2000/30/EC. It covers both 2005–2006 and 2007–2008, because of delays in receiving the information for 2005–2006.

Evaluation: the Commission notes that there is poor compliance by most Member States with the obligation to provide statistics and information under Directive 2000/30/EC:

• not all Member States send the data in a timely way;

• where data are sent, this is not done in enough detail to enable an adequate evaluation of the effectiveness of Community policies on road safety and environmental protection.

While the Directive provides a model for individual roadworthiness reports, the form is not easy to use to send all the relevant statistical data electronically to the Commission. As the Directive does not specify a format for sending statistical data, Member States send this information by very different methods, making it difficult to collate the results.

The report states that it would be better if in future the data were sent in a computer-processable format. It is necessary, therefore, to specify a common exchange format. On the basis of experience gained in this first exercise, the Commission could propose a common format for electronic transmission of statistical data to the Commission. There was some improvement for the period 2007–2008, when the Commission provided Member States with a reporting model in the form of a standard Excel sheet.

The report goes on to note that although the Directive requires a specific level of detail (vehicles classified by category and by country of registration, details of items checked and deficiencies encountered on the basis of Annex I to Directive 2000/30/EC), the requisite information is often transmitted in a highly aggregate form, rendering detailed analysis impossible.

The Commission might consider convening the Committee on the Adaptation to Technical Progress, which is responsible for assisting in the implementation of Directive 2000/30/EC, with a view to finding solutions to the difficulties encountered by Member States in collecting, compiling and transmitting statistical data concerning technical roadside inspections, including possible amendments to the specimen technical roadside inspection report laid down in Annex I to Directive 2000/30/EC. The significant variations in non-compliance levels noted between the Member States cannot be explained by an analysis of the information transmitted. An explanation will be sought in consultation with the Member States.

Non-compliant vehicles: for the period 2007–2008 the information sent by Member States shows that the proportion of vehicles considered not to comply with the requirements of Directive 2000/30/EC in relation to all checked vehicles registered in the EU varies considerably from one Member State to another, from a high figure of 63.0 % in Denmark to only 0.3 % in Bulgaria. The figure of 197.3 % of non-compliant vehicles in Cyprus is probably based on a different method of counting checks and non-compliant vehicles. These differences may reflect the relative importance which individual Member States attach to technical inspections compared with roadside checks on other aspects of road transport. For instance, the ratio reported by Belgium is not restricted exclusively to technical roadside inspections but includes all roadside checks. In general, the Belgian report distinguishes between checks on compliance with legislation on working time, exceptional loads, transport of dangerous goods, the Eurovignette, and other matters. Technical inspections tend not to be listed separately and the relevant information is not provided in detail. Of the 26 Member States which supplied information on the number of non-compliant vehicles and the total number of checked vehicles registered in the EU, three record a level of non-compliance of below 1.0 %

Registration of vehicles checked: many Member States mainly check vehicles registered in their own territory. The proportion of vehicles not registered in their territory in relation to all vehicles checked by the Member States varies greatly. For the periods 2005–2006, and 2007-2008, of the vehicles checked in 12 Member States for which all the information concerning the country of registration is available, more than 80 % are registered in their own territory. There is insufficient overall statistical data to cross-reference this information with the road traffic recorded by each Member State by country of registration. The geographical situation of certain Member States, for example Cyprus or Malta, also has to be borne in mind. The attention of Member States should be drawn to the fact that inspecting vehicles not registered in their territory helps to spread best practice. Consequently, this proportion ought to be as high as possible in relation to road traffic flows.

A more harmonised approach to testing methods and the assessment of deficiencies seems necessary to reduce the differences between Member States. Therefore the Commission will continue to examine whether future measures should be proposed in order to reduce differences. Compliance rates differ between the Member States, although there is no obvious evidence that vehicles originating from other Member States are judged differently from vehicles registered in the reporting Member State.