Carriage of goods by road: statistical returns

1997/0233(CNS)
OBJECTIVE: the proposed operation is intended to round off current production of harmonized statistical data on the transport of goods by road and ensure the availability of information necessary for the framing, monitoring, controlling and evaluation of the common policy. SUBSTANCE: the proposal for a Regulation will replace Directives 78/546/EEC and 89/462/EEC, whose application no longer provides sufficient statistical information since the development of the common transport policy. The proposed Regulation, which thus amends the existing Directives, will provide new data on: - the type of freight (including containers, interchange units, palletized and bulk goods); - goods classed as dangerous under Council Directive 94/55/EC; - utilization of transport capacity; - type of vehicle (maximum permissible laden weight, axle configuration); - cross-border transport flows; - cabotage (national transport by non-resident operators). In order to limit the statistical burden on businesses, the Commission proposes that the Member States should be free to exclude from the scope of the Regulation any operations carried out by the smallest vehicles (payloads of up to 3.5 tonnes or six tonnes maximum permissible laden weight). The political fields for which a new legal act on statistics on the carriage of goods by road are most urgently required are as follows: - intermodal freight transport; - trans-European networks; - transport safety; - the single market and the liberalization of transport (cabotage). �