Minimum requirements on minimum breaks and daily and weekly rest periods in the occasional passenger transport sector
The Committee on Transport and Tourism adopted the report by Henna VIRKKUNEN (EPP, FI) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 as regards minimum requirements on minimum breaks and daily and weekly rest periods in the occasional passenger transport sector.
The committee responsible recommended that the European Parliament's position adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the proposal as follows:
Breaks
More flexibility in the scheduling of breaks for drivers engaged in occasional road passenger transport services should not cause in any way more fatigue or stress for the drivers and it should be ensured that they take breaks of the minimum duration necessary to enable them to rest properly and sufficiently. Therefore, the report sets a minimum duration for each break. Therefore, drivers engaged in occasional road passenger transport services should be allowed to split their obligatory break into two breaks of at least 15 minutes each (as opposed to three in the Commission proposal) while respecting the total required minimum rest time of 45 minutes. More flexibility in the scheduling of these breaks, however, should not prevent drivers from having breaks longer than the required minimum duration or having additional breaks.
Daily and weekly rest periods
Provided that road safety and the working conditions of the driver are not thereby jeopardised, a driver engaged in a single occasional passenger service accompanied by one journey form, with a duration of at least 6 days may derogate by postponing the daily rest period by at most 1 hour, provided that the total accumulated driving time for that day has not exceeded 7 hours and the maximum daily working time under the applicable law is respected.
Postpone weekly rest periods
In order to ensure effective and efficient enforcement, improved control measures and requirements should be established taking full advantage of digital tools. To allow for checks on the derogation to postpone the daily rest period and the possibility to postpone the weekly rest period for up to 12 consecutive 24 hour periods, a digital journey form should be electronically registered prior to the start of the journey in addition to the tachograph records and the printout from the recording equipment or the duty roster. The report stated that the digital forms should be accessible in real time during road side checks and be solely used for controls of compliance and enforcement. For this purpose, the Commission should develop a multilingual interface on the basis of the Internal Market Information (IMI) system to allow operators to upload their digital journey forms.