The Once-Only Technical System connected to EUCARIS
22 February 2023 | 5 minutes read
The Once-Only Technical System will be connected to EUCARIS, making the cross-border registration of vehicles in and between different EU Member States and other vehicle-related procedures even easier.
This news follows the development of a Proof of Concept (PoC) for a minimum integration between the two data exchange systems. This PoC is limited to evidence exchange. This means that the two cross-border technical systems can communicate – and so share evidence – with each other.
The Once-Only Technical System connects EU public authorities, so they can exchange official documents and data (known as evidence) at the citizen’s request.
The PoC for the integration of EUCARIS and the Once-Only Technical System concerns creating a bridge for evidence providers that (1) intercepts evidence requests, (2) searches for vehicles of the user, (3) gets data about those vehicles and (4) creates an evidence response and returns it to the requester.
Access Points from the eDelivery building block enable the exchange of evidence between evidence requesters and evidence providers.
EUCARIS (the European Car and Driving License Information System) allows participating countries to share their car and driving license registration information and other transport related data within multiple judicial frameworks. EUCARIS is underpinned through an international treaty and also provides an application.
Article 14 of the Single Digital Gateway Regulation and the related Implementing Regulation create the legal basis for the Once-Only Technical System. Recital 6 of the Implementing Regulating states that the OOTS should build on the work already done and exploit synergies with other existing systems for the exchange of evidence or information among authorities relevant for the procedures referred to in the SDG regulation and explicitly mentions EUCARIS as one of these existing systems. OOTS and EUCARIS are both networks of systems for the cross-border exchange of evidence (such as vehicle registration certificates) in electronic form between competent authorities and they overlap in procedures in which vehicle related information is to be exchanged.
The team in the European Commission working on the Once-Only Technical System regularly reaches out to teams working on similar technical systems and data spaces with to help avoid duplication of efforts and reduce development effort to meet (often legal) deadlines with greater ease.
The Single Digital Gateway Regulation lists specific procedures in Annex II (as well as the procedures provided for in several other Directives). This Annex groups procedures by so-called “life events”, which includes the following procedures relevant to EUCARIS:
- Registering a motor vehicle originating from or already registered in a Member State, in standard procedures;
- Obtaining stickers for the use of the national road infrastructure: time-based charges (vignette), distance-based charges (toll), issued by a public body or institution.;
- Obtaining emission stickers issued by a public body or institution.
The interconnection of the two systems is mutually beneficial. The Once-Only Technical System will benefit from the years of experience built up by EUCARIS. Conversely, EUCARIS will benefit from becoming part of a technical system at the heart of Europe’s digital transformation. By interconnecting the two systems using a bridge, a costly duplication of effort can be avoided, and a large number of existing evidence providers can be connected in a much shorter timeframe.
Looking forward, the Once-Only Technical System provides “Common Services” to help connect it to the various relevant national websites (online procedure portals). The Data Service Directory (DSD, a common service that acts as a catalogue of evidence types that can be provided upon request) and Evidence Broker (EB, an authoritative system that maps specific data sets as evidence types that prove specific requirements) allow for a relevantly easy integration with procedure portals.
You can keep informed about the interconnection of the Once-Only Technical System with other such cross-border infrastructure on the Once-Only Hub or subscribing to our newsletter.