Maris Pekalis, Ministry of Transport of Latvia

4^th European Bus & Coach Forum
"Facilitating International Regular Services by Bus and Coach in Europe"
Friday, 21 October 2005, 09:30 - 13:30
Meeting Centre "Gruzenberg", Kortrijk Xpo, Belgium

1st Interactive Panel Session

Maris Pekalis - Ministry of Transport of Latvia

Dear colleagues,

First of all I would like to express my gratitude to IRU and ECMT for the organisation of this Bus and Coach Forum, which will allow for the coming together of many interested parties, such as representatives from the International Regular Services industry, national competent authorities, and different European organisations. I believe that today's discussions will help us to improve the quality of Regular Services, and will show us how Regular International Services can survive in the context of unfair competition from other modes of transport.

Europe has a large scale network of International regular services linking different regions to one another. They provide a reliable, safe, and flexible service at a reasonable price. Coach and Bus Services are an important factor in the economy. They not only bring passengers to many different destinations but also generate income for other businesses. A healthy coach industry will not only be beneficial for the operators but also for customers.

The theme of my presentation is "Application and Enforcement Challenges: the EU versus the Bilateral System". A comparison between the EU system and the bilateral agreements shows the obvious advantages of the EU system. First of all, in the EU we have harmonised regulations which, of course, are simpler and clearer than bilateral conditions. In the interpretation of EU regulations we don't always have a common understanding, but at least the rules of the game are clear. I think that one of the goals of this Forum is to reach or to improve the common understanding of EU regulations via interactive discussions.
Regulatory Framework of International Regular Services:

Within EU: Council Regulations 684/92 amended by Regulations 11/98 on common rules for international carriage of passengers by coach and bus. Under these regulations any passenger carrier is permitted to carry out international transport services by coach or bus, without discrimination as to nationality or place of establishment if he fulfills certain conditions.

Authorisations continue to be a key aspect for the organisation of an International Regular Service.

Priority should be given to end discrimination in favour of rail and introduce a higher degree of fairness and transparency in the authorisation procedure, including more precise rules and shorter consultation periods. Strict rules should be established to prevent authorities from refusing authorisations to operators simply to avoid granting them under the proposed automatic "tacit authorisation procedure", when the time limit for granting the authorisation under the existing procedure has not been respected by authorities.

I would like to emphasise some obstacles which disturb transport operators attempting to observe obligations and to provide services according to regulations.

These obstacles are well known to everybody for many years, but only minor improvements have been made in this field. International regular services are expected to run according to fixed timetables and to bring their passengers to their destination according to the timetable, but international border crossings involve very long waiting due to a lack of priority treatment of these services. It is imperative that authorities place border waiting times among the major priorities of their political agenda, and make best use of technological advances.

Further disturbance to the respect of a timetable can also be caused by numerous controls on the road, such as custom authorities, technical roadside inspection, national control authorities (speed, driving and rest time, documents on board) and so on. Sometimes these controls take hours making it impossible to obey the timetable, and the carrier is eventually penalised at subsequent borders, by the national rules, for nonobservance of the timetable, and in many cases also has to pay compensation to passengers. My proposal is to call on all national control authorities which perform controls on the road to arrange for the control of Regular International Services buses at the determined stops or final destinations to avoid disturbing the fixed timetable as much as possible.

The opening of the international coach transport market has unfortunately coincided with the opening of the air traffic market. More than thirty low cost airlines have started successful business in the new EU Member States resulting in an abnormal drop in fares. The competition between coach and air transport is unfair due to a discriminative fiscal treatment of coach transport companies as compared to airlines. The freedom to provide services should be respected and discrimination between transport modes should be ended.

Outside EU: Bilateral Agreements and National Rules or Regulations

The procedure for the issuing of authorisations is more complicated than in the EU, and frequently information regarding the conditions stated in national rules or regulations is not available to us.

Concerning international regular services between EU Member States and third countries, performed in the framework of bilateral agreements, reflection is needed on the subject of the multiplication of applicable rules. This is an important issue to address due to the extremely difficulty in obtaining authorisations for international regular services and the extremely heavy bureaucracy in several countries. The harmonisation of the application and granting procedure is necessary.

In relation to the authorisation granting procedure, I completely support the IRU position stated in "IRU Memorandum on International Regular Services by Bus and Coaches" on 26th November 2003, and particularly the IRU proposal to ECMT and the European Commission to work towards:

The further facilitation and increased transparency and fairness in the authorisation procedures established in bilateral agreements;
The harmonisation of the different aspects of the application and granting procedures between the countries of the European Union and third countries;
The reduction of periods of consultation with transit countries. The procedure should be transparent for the applicant operator and the operator should be granted the right to appeal against the decision;
The examination of the extent to which a multilateral agreement on international regular services by bus and coach could be established.

The obstacles mentioned above frequently cause significant delays to the performance of Regular International Services by bus between EU and third countries, but the most important delays are those caused by waiting times at borders, due to the lack of priority treatment of such services.

Finally I would like to raise some questions on the interpretation and application of Community Regulations:

Association of undertakings: What should be the procedure for replacing or adding some partner undertakings to an existing regular service? Can it be considered a minor alteration or does the new application have to be sent to all competent authorities for their opinion?

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