Carriage of goods by road: statistical returns
The Commission has presented a report on the experience acquired in the work carried out pursuant to Council Regulation 1172/98/EC on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road.
After a general description of the scope and objectives of the Regulation, the report examines issues relating to its implementation. It also contains information on financial assistance granted to Member States and on the main results obtained. Lastly, the annex presents tables and diagrams containing information on European goods transport by road, gathered on the basis of the Council Regulation.
The results of the implementation of the Regulation are, for the most part, positive. The implementation of this Regulation of this Regulation has improved the availability of detailed information on European goods transport by road. The statistics are of good quality. The Member States have devoted considerable investment and effort to comply with the provisions of the Regulation, with most of them respecting the deadlines laid down. A certain number of application measures have been adopted by committee procedure. All the problems linked to the transmission, loading and validation of data and the interpretation of the Regulation have been addressed and most of them have been solved. The issues concerned with dissemination and the related problems of confidentiality have also been agreed upon, and the dissemination of data has begun.
In the short term, a priority will be the dissemination both of new variables and of the time series of the main variables related to road transport statistics, as well as the implementation of the Regulation by the Acceding Countries. In the longer term, it may be decided to propose a form of regular collection of data on vehicles outside the weight limits currently applied. In order to provide a complete view of road freight transport on EU territory, additional measures might be needed to collect data on transport operations by vehicles registered outside the EU.