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This autumn, the European Commission (EC) will publish its transport

3rd June 2010, Page 28
3rd June 2010
Page 28
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Page 28, 3rd June 2010 — This autumn, the European Commission (EC) will publish its transport
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

White Paper. setting out its stall for the next 10 years.The details won't be known for a while, but insiders believe the emphasis will be on promoting a shift of freight to rail, a direction of travel that will come as no surprise to EC-watchers.

Although the White Paper is not a legislative tool, it will set a framework for how transport should be managed over the coming decade.

The office of the EC Transport Commissioner Siim Kailas is hard at work drafting the paper after a consultation that ended last November.

Brian Simpson, UK Labour MEP and chairman of the European Parliament's Transport Committee. says his committee is drafting its own paper to feed into the debate. He agrees that rail will play its part. "Our role is to meet people's desires," he says. "The need for modal shift is important."

Clues as to what the EC's paper may contain lie in a recent presentation in Brussels. The European Environment Agency (EEA) presented its annual report, Towards a resource-efficient transport system. The influential document was introduced to the Transport Committee by the EEA's Professor Jacqueline McGlade. She said that improved engine and vehicle design and the enforcement of speed limits could bring a further 20% reduction in CO2 emissions

She added:"We need to cut the running of empty containers and consider the greater use of rail freight." She also identified continuous traffic noise as a source of health problems.

The EEA report's findings include: • Over the past decade, the amount of freight grew rapidly until the end of 2007 when Europe faced the onset of recession. Overall tonne-kilometres (excluding small countries such as Cyprus and Malta) increased by 34% between 1997 and 2007 Over this period road and air freight increased faster than other modes — by 43% and 35% respectively.

• Volumes transported by rail and on inland waterways grew by only 10%, so reducing their market share.

• Improved logistical performance will cut emissions. Methods to do this include reducing average haul lengths; better vehicle utilisation; shortening routes between collection and delivery points; and building freight consolidation centres.

0 Incentives and compensation measures should be Reducing road freight

granted to transport operators employing environmentally is a priority in the next friendly vehicle technologies and using alternative fuels. decade.

0 Ports and intermocial terminals should be developed to provide a sustainable transport system with continued investment in port and railway infrastructure. 0 Overall, road freight in 25 countries showed a growth pattern until the summer of 2008 (when the recession hit) and a sharp decline afterwards of 15% in one year.

McGlade concluded that subsidies were necessary, particularly on inland waterways to transfer freight from road. "There have to be big investments," she said. "How do we plan moving freight on a coherent basis across Europe?Given the current state of the European economy, the funds may be slow to emerge. For more information, go to: www.eea.europa.en Harmonising penalties

A bone of contention fur many UK hauliers is that they can face a staggering fine in one member state that would only merit a £60 Graduated Fixed Penalty back home.

The maximum UK fixed penalty fine is £200, although foreign operators can be asked to pay a deposit of between £300 and £900 and their vehicle can be impounded if the case is to be prosecuted. UK magistrates' courts can fine up £5,000 for false tachograph records and Crown courts can jail offenders for two years or impose an unlimited fine. Austrian MEP HeIla Ranner from the EP's Transport Committee has drafted an own-initiative report with the aim of reducing the difference between fines that truck drivers face across Europe, particularly for drivers' hours and tachograph offences The Ranner report, which was approved by the Transport Committee and later arn-pted by the European Parliament, says that an "effective, balanced and dissuasive penalty system can only be based on clear, transparent and comparable penalties across the member states". It calls on member states to find ways of reducing the "very substantial differences in the type and level of penalties applied".

Tachograph offenders face fines of up to €586 in Lithuania, but €2,460 in Poland, although in both cases the maximum fine is imposed. In Spain the same offence can attract a fine of €4,601; in Italy up to €.6.232, and in France up to €30,000 with the possibility of a year's jail sentence.

"The penalty systems in the EU member states have evolved historically and therefore show wide disparities, with fines in extreme cases that can be as much as 10-times higher in one country than another," says Ranner.

The report calls for minimum and maximum penalties and for all offences to be categorised. Malta, for example, has a set fine for infringements of €58.23. "We need better co-ordination at European level," said Ranner, who believes that secure and safe parking will reduce the likelihood of drivers offending.

Although supported by both the Transport Committee and the European Parliament, the report is not legally binding because it is an own-initiative document However, a Transport Committee spokesman says: "It's a recommendation that invites the EC and the Council of Ministers to take action." The issue now goes to a full vote of the European Parliament on 16 June. If it supports the decision of the Employment Committee, it is hard to see how ownerdrivers can evade the 48-hour week and the level of record keeping that the directive calls for.

Owner-drivers were due to be included from March 2009, having received a seven-year derogation in 2002. However, the EC believes it is impractical to police the hours of the self-employed and that it should target the 'false self-employed' instead — those who, in reality, are tied to one employer.

Supporters of the EC's position have not given up. "We will come back to the parliament in June with a proposal for exclusion," says Edit Bauer MEP, member of the Employment Committee and rapporteur (sponsor) for the report that was rejected in April by 30 votes to 19.


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