On Thursday, 16 November, members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) adopted their negotiating position on the revision of the rules on driving times and rest periods for drivers providing occasional bus and coach services (see EUROPE 13250/12) by 31 votes in favour and 5 against with 1 abstention.
“This regulation helps the drivers to better respond to changing circumstances and passenger needs while respecting road safety and proper working conditions”, commented the rapporteur, Henna Virkkunen (EPP, Finnish), in a press release. “Simultaneously, we must ensure that all driving and resting rules are correctly enforced and controlled”, she added.
With regard to breaks and rest periods, the elected representatives wanted to ensure greater flexibility by giving occasional bus drivers the option of dividing their obligatory break into two breaks of at least 15 minutes each while respecting the total required minimum rest period of 45 minutes during or at the end of the 4.5 hours of driving. This issue had been the subject of a disagreement in the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) (see EUROPE 13256/3).
MEPs voted in favour of allowing bus and coach drivers on a tour of at least 6 days to postpone their daily rest period by a maximum of 1 hour, provided that the total driving time for that day has not exceeded 7 hours. They felt that this flexibility should not jeopardise road safety and should be limited to the period of the tour.
They also supported a proposal aiming to extend the possibility of postponing the weekly rest period up to 12 days to occasional national passenger services. This option currently exists for international passenger services.
With regard to supervision, they have asked the European Commission to develop a multilingual interface that would allow operators to upload their digital journey forms, replacing paper forms. Digital journey forms would thus be electronically registered before the start of the journey, in addition to the tachograph records, and would be accessible in real time during roadside checks.
This draft mandate will be put to a vote during the December plenary session in Strasbourg.
Read the compromise amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/9lp (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)