Study on Road Cabotage in the freight transport market. Final report

DG TREN commissioned this study in order to acquire a more comprehensive understanding of the market for road cabotage, i.e. national road transport by non-resident hauliers, in the EUR-15 Member States and Slovenia.

The main findings are:

Road cabotage still only accounts for about 1% of total road transport in the EU, despite an 100% increase since its liberalization in 1998; however, in some Member States, road cabotage takes a bigger share of the national market (almost 3% in France and Belgium).
For hauliers from certain Member States road cabotage is an important part of their business: for hauliers from Luxemburg, for instance, cabotage represents almost 25% of their total transport performance.

While road cabotage is governed by a Council regulation and the Commission has adopted an interpretative communication on road cabotage, several Member States and road transport associations have expressed the need for a more precise and clearer definition of this activity. The current rules are seen to leave too much room for interpretation and to be difficult to enforce.

These findings and the recommendations contained in the study will be taken into account in the revision of the market access legislation for road transport in 2006

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