Periodic roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers. Technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Union. 'Roadworthiness package'

PURPOSE: to improve road safety, facilitate the free movement of persons and reduce pollutant emissions by amending Directive 2014/45/EU on periodic roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers and Directive 2014/47/EU on the technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Union.

PROPOSED ACT: Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

BACKGROUND: provisions regarding roadworthiness testing have been part of Union legislation for decades. They are however subject to gradual harmonisation. Union law to that effect was last revised in 2014 with the ‘Roadworthiness Packager’. To improve enforcement, consecutive revisions of those rules gradually extended the scope of vehicles to be tested and the scope of the harmonised rules, including those on roadside inspections and vehicle registration documents. They specified and updated the required test methods, procedures and related documents to reflect technological progress.

CONTENT: Member States have implemented Directives 2014/45/EU and 2014/47/EU in different ways, and a significant number of amendments are being proposed. The Commission’s proposal for revising Directives 2014/45/EU and 2014/47/EU are interrelated and aim to improve road safety in the EU, contribute to sustainable mobility and facilitate the free movement of people and goods in the EU.

The main provisions that substantially change the Directives or add new elements are described below.

Amendments to Directive 2014/45/EU

These aim to:

- include electrically powered motorcycles in the scope next to those equipped with internal combustion engines, which are already in scope. For the same reason, the option to exclude motorcycles from the scope of roadworthiness testing is removed;

- introduce the possibility for the owners or holders of passenger cars to take periodic roadworthiness tests in a Member State other than the Member State of registration. The temporary roadworthiness certificate issued in this case will be valid for six months;

- ensure that vehicle manufacturers must make the technical information necessary for roadworthiness testing available to Member States’ competent authorities free of charge. These authorities must then make the data available to their testing centres;

- extend the obligation to record odometer readings beyond PTI centres to any service provider that carries out repairs or maintenance work on a vehicle for payment;

- ensure that vehicle manufacturers send regular odometer readings from their connected vehicles;

- ensure annual testing is carried out of cars and vans that are more than 10 years old. It also requires vans to be subject to exhaust emissions tests every year following their date of first registration;

- accommodate the extension of scope to electrically powered motorcycles and to allow Member States to exempt only those vehicles from exhaust emissions or noise testing that successfully passed a corresponding technical roadside inspection failures during the six months before the PTI;

- guarantee that the digital version of the roadworthiness certificate becomes the default solution and that it is recognised by all Member States;

- introduce an obligation on Member States to connect their national vehicle registers and roadworthiness databases with the MOVE-HUB platform developed by the Commission, for relevant data to be exchanged during periodic roadworthiness testing.

Amendments to Directive 2014/47/EU

These amendments aim to:

- include vans in the scope and apply the provisions on remote sensing to cars and motorcycles;

- require Member States to make use of remote sensing technology to screen the noise and exhaust emissions of large parts of their vehicle fleet to identify potentially high-emitting vehicles (of any vehicle category). Member States will be required to check the emissions of those vehicles either at a roadside check or by inviting the owner or holder of the vehicle to a PTI centre. The proposal provides for the methods to check the emissions of vehicles registered in a Member State other than the one where the remote sensing measurement took place;

- provide effective penalties for obvious tampering with a vehicle’s components, including emission control and safety systems;

- oblige Member States to connect their national vehicle registers and roadworthiness databases with the MOVE-HUB platform developed by the Commission, for relevant data to be exchanged during roadside inspections.

Budgetary implications

The implications for the EU budget are mainly related to extending the features of the IT data exchange system (the MOVE-HUB) linked to the revision of the RWP. This includes one-off adaptation costs and recurrent updates and maintenance costs. These are required to add new data elements to the vehicle registers and providing electronic access to certain data (including on PTI reports stored in national databases). The associated costs are estimated at EUR 0.2 million in one-off costs and EUR 0.05 million per year in recurrent costs.