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

The Commission presented the sixth report on the application by Member States of Directive 2000/30/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the technical roadside inspection of roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Community (2015-2016).

Under Directive 2000/30/EC, commercial vehicles and their trailers circulating on the territory of a Member State shall be subject to technical roadside inspections of their roadworthiness in order to improve road and protect the environment. The Directive lists nine points which may be subject to roadside inspections. Failure to comply with one of the requirements may result in the use of the vehicle being prohibited.

The deadline for Member States to submit their data to the Commission for this reporting period was 31 March 2017.

The main findings of the present report are as follows:

Data communicated

All Member States made use of the pre-prepared template to submit their data electronically. However not all Member States met the deadline for submitting their data.

Inspections

Compared to the previous period, which showed already a decrease of 31.5%, the number of checked vehicles decreased further. In 2015-2016, 534 473 fewer vehicles were inspected which is a decrease of 9.6%. Reduced resources, reorganisation, changes of the national legislation and application of the rulesmay explain this.

In any event eighteen Member States carried out fewer inspections with percentage reductions ranging from 1% in the case of Croatia to a 68% reduction in the case of Greece. On the other hand, ten Member States recorded increases in the number of inspections carried out with percentage increases ranging from 1.2% in the case of Denmark to 429% in the case of Cyprus.

62% of inspections carried out during the reporting period were on domsetic vehicles, 33% were on vehicles registered in another Member State and 5% were on vehicles registered outside the EU.

Prohibited vehicles

Compared to the previous period, 60 112 more vehicles were prohibited which is an increase of 17.5%. Thirteen Member States recorded an increase in the number of prohibitions issued with increases ranging from 3% in the case of Sweden to approx. 7000% in the case of Portugal. On the other hand, fifteen Member States recorded decreases in the number of prohibitions issued ranging from 2.7% in the case of Slovakia to a 71.8% reduction in the case of Greece or 71.6% in the case of Bulgaria.

In terms of the origin of vehicles prohibited, the overall prohibition rate for domestic vehicles was 7.9%, while 9.0% for other EU Member States' vehicles and 3.2% for vehicles registered outside the EU. This would indicate that standards are generally being universally applied for EU vehicles irrespective of the country of registration of the vehicle. The reason the prohibition rate for non-EU vehicles is lower might be due to the fact that operators are choosing to send their newest and best maintained vehicles on those journeys that involve travel within the EU.

The average prohibition rate for EU registered vehicles across all Member States was 8.3%. Category N3 vehicles (Heavy Goods Vehicles) were prohibited most often, i.e. a prohibition rate of 9.6%. Maltese registered vehicles were prohibited more frequently with a prohibition rate of 43.9%. On the other hand, German and Bulgarian vehicles were prohibited least often with prohibition rates of 1.5% and 3.7% respectively.

Defects

The two most frequent types of deficiencies detected during the reporting period related to the:

- ‘lighting equipment and electrical systems’ (23%);

- ‘axles, wheels tyres and suspension’ (21.8%);

- ‘braking’ (13.9%).

However significant differences in prohibition rates per test area continue to exists amongst the Member States. For example, defects detected in Spain in the ‘other equipment including tachograph and speed limitation device’ inspection area accounted for 86% of the total defects recorded during the reporting period, whereas defects in this area only accounted for 0.6% of the total found in the UK. Once again, the reason for this is most likely due to different inspection methods being applied by Member States and the emphasis, focus of the authorities on certain defects.