In-depth safety impact study on longer and/or heavier commercial vehicles in Europe

Maximum weights and dimensions of commercial vehicles within the territory of the European Union are regulated in Directive 96/53/EC. Already today Europe is challenged by an enormous growth of freight transport which such threatens parts of the European transport system with congestion and economic costs that this entails the directive may have reached its limitations. Thus, the Directorate General for Energy and Transport (DG TREN) has recently commissioned a study for European research institutes to analyze the different effects of adapting the maximum weights and dimensions of heavy commercial vehicles for the European Commission. This paper provides an overview of the in-depth safety analysis within this study of these vehicles on European roads. A key finding of the analysis was that permitting longer and/or heavier vehicles in road traffic would not induce an inherent increase of safety risks in general. In addition, the study revealed an economic benefit regarding accident costs by the usage of such commercial vehicles.