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Weights and dimensions
Heavy goods vehicles transporting goods in Europe, buses and coaches, must comply with certain rules on weights and dimensions for road safety reasons and to avoid damages to roads, bridges and tunnels. Directive 96/53/EC sets maximum common measures, ensuring that Member States cannot restrict the circulation of vehicles which comply with these limits from performing international transport operations within their territories. To avoid that national operators benefit from undue advantages over their competitors from other Member States when performing national transport, they are bound to comply with the standards set for international transport.
By avoiding obstacles at borders and ensuring that no hauliers are exposed to unfair competition, this directive aims to facilitate the internal market and to ensure free movement of goods in Europe. For national transport however, the Directive foresees a number of derogations and Member States can decide to apply standards that deviate from the Directive for transport within their own borders, for instance for the transport of large loads such as forestry goods or longer combination of vehicles in Nordic countries.
These rules complement the requirements for type-approval of commercial vehicles laid out in Directive 97/27/EC. This directive (under responsibility of DG Enterprise) sets the framework for putting vehicles such as light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles, buses and trailers on the market, and applies only to new vehicles, whereas Directive 96/53/EC sets out rules for the circulation of all commercial vehicles, the new ones like the others.
The current provisions on weight and dimensions date back in part to the 1980's. As announced in the White Paper on Transport, the Commission intends to review them to adapt the standards to technical progress. In particular, these rules need to be adapted to facilitate the introduction of improved aerodynamic of vehicles which will limit CO2 emissions and energy use, and to better reflect new intermodal transport standards. The Commission is currently carrying out the necessary technical and economic analysis.
Related documents
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Legislation
Commission Staff Working Document of 27.11.2006 on the continuous carriage of 45' containers in national road transportAll available translations.
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Longer and Heavier Vehicles
Presented reports:
