09 February 2022

The Mobility Package

We would like to inform you about the upcoming changes in the transport market as part of the Mobility Package.

The Mobility Package is a European package of measures that aims to end the distortion of competition in the road transport sector and to ensure improved working conditions for all drivers in Europe.

This package was published on July 30, 2020 and contains a series of measures that take effect at different times. Among others, the new driving time and rest period regulation is already in force since 20 August 2020.

The most far-reaching measures of this package will take effect on February 1 of this year (next week). These are the following measures:

• February 2, 2022: renewed secondment directive. The driver's wage will be determined by the higher of the wage applicable in country of establishment, loading or unloading. As a result, the share of driver costs in the total cost price will increase especially in international traffic.

 

• February 21, 2022: 'Return Home Vehicle'. In addition to the previously introduced 'Return home driver', the vehicle must now also return to the country of residence once every 8 weeks. This will result in a shift of capacity in the market. For example, a vehicle has to return to Poland and therefore cannot make a trip to Italy. In addition, a vehicle will also have to drive extra (empty) kilometers and this will lead to more C02 emissions. An initial analysis shows that this could lead to a 15% drop in the effective deployability of the vehicle, resulting in a drop in capacity in an already tight market.

 

• February 21, 2022: new cabotage rules. The current cabotage rules (performing domestic transport with a vehicle that is not registered in that country) will be expanded to include the so-called "cooling down period". After performing a cabotage trip, the vehicle will have to stay outside the country for 4 days. This will have an impact on capacity in the (domestic) markets. 

Together with the above measures, administrative rules will also be introduced to enable control of the aforementioned changes. For example, all drivers and trips must be registered in a European system. In addition, when crossing a national border, drivers must stop at the first parking lot to change the country code in the tachograph. 

All these measures will lead to cost increases for transport. At this time, the exact effects are not yet known. We expect to be able to provide more clarity on this by the end of February. In addition, the impact on the available capacity is difficult to estimate at this time.

As soon as we have further information, we will contact you. If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact your contact person or our customer service team - customerservice@nl.mainfreight.com / +31 (0)314 671 111.