The European Commission’s proposal to extend mandatory Periodic Technical Inspection (PTI) to Powered Two-Wheelers (PTW) could provide benefits, provided it does not burden the user, with unjustified costs.
The European Commission’s proposal to extend mandatory Periodic Technical Inspection (PTI) to Powered Two-Wheelers (PTW) could provide benefits, provided it does not burden the user, with unjustified costs.
L-category vehicles, such as motorcycles, scooters and mopeds, are already subject to periodic inspections in sixteen countries of the European Union. PTWs are being increasingly used as individual means of transport in Europe’s cities to solve congestion and parking problems, and PTI can bring tangible benefits to safety and environmental emissions for the vehicle fleet. Regarding safety, the MAIDS (Motorcycle Accidents In-Depth Study) highlighted that whilst only 0,3% of accidents are actually directly caused by a technical failure, in more than 5% of accidents technical failures are present as contributing factors. These technical failures mainly concern defective vehicle lighting, the state of the tyres and of the brakes, due to lack of proper maintenance. Regarding the environment, LAT (Laboratory of Applied Thermodynamics, Thessaloniki) in its “Study on possible new measures concerning motorcycle emissions” (link) already in 2004 and in 2008 demonstrated that PTI is one of the most cost-effective measures to deal with the emissions from PTWs, given it covers also vehicles in circulation, with lower environmental standards. Both MAIDS and the LAT study conclude that PTI would be effective in contributing to the reduction of vehicle tampering.
ACEM supports the principle of further harmonisation of checks at European level. However, ACEM urges the legislator to adapt the proposed periodicity to the average mileage of recorded by the PTW fleet. Dependant on the vehicle category, PTWs annual mileage is three to five times lower than passenger cars. Therefore, ACEM supports 4-2-2 periodicity, with the first check taking place four years after purchase and subsequently every two years, instead of the 4-2-1 periodicity in the EC proposal. This is in line with currently applying provisions for passenger cars, and would allow for a cost-beneficial initial introduction of the measure in Member States currently not applying PTI to PTWs. Furthermore, given that PTI enables the collection of more precise data on vehicle mileage and technical failures, this initial 4-2-2 periodicity would provide the basis to reassess and eventually adapt the PTI scheme in the future, in terms of periodicity and content of the checks.
The full content of the ACEM input to the EC consultation on PTI can be found here.
More documents:
- ACEM presentation. The Industry proposal;
- ACEM position on Roadworthiness testing and historic motorcycles;
- Proposed modifications to Annex II of Directive 2010/48, 8 (ACEM);
- Deutsches Kraftfahrzeuggewerbe;
- Italian Roadworthiness testing (Periodical Inspection) for two or three wheel motor vehicles.