58
BACK IN THE OLD ROUTINE MULTIMODAL • THE REGULATORS ARE BEGINNING TO GET BACK INTO THE PROCESS OF MAKING NEW RULES AFTER THE COVID LOCKDOWN, STARTING WITH THE JOINT MEETING
the 2021 editions of RID, ADR and ADN so, unless adopted as corrections or addenda, will have to wait until the 2023 editions. The Bern session was opened by Wolfgang Küpper, secretary-general of the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF), who underlined the good collaboration and the important work done by both the secretariats of OTIF and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE).
THE SPRING 2020 session of the Joint Meeting of the RID Committee of Experts and the Working Party on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (WP 15) was an early casualty of the restrictions imposed by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. That meant that the experts lost their last chance to make changes to the 2021 texts of RID, ADR and ADN, the regulations that govern the transport of dangerous goods by rail, road
Since then, the regulatory authorities have developed methods to enable the experts to meet in a virtual format and, in order to help them catch up, the autumn session of the Joint Meeting was extended by two days. It was held for two days in Bern on 10 and 11 September and for five days the following week in Geneva. It was chaired by Claude Pfauvadel (France) with Silvia Garcia-Wolfrum (Spain) as vice-chair.
TANK CONTAINER FITTINGS The session opened by discussing the progress made by the informal working group on the inspection and certification of tanks. There are three items being considered: the notification and approval of national systems for inspection bodies; the approval of Type C inspection bodies to perform periodic inspections, intermediate inspections and minor exceptional inspections; and the entry
and inland waterway, respectively, throughout Europe as well as in an increasing number of other countries.
It was attended by representatives of 25 countries as full members and representatives of the European Commission, EU Agency for Railways (ERA) and 18 non-governmental organisations. The autumn session came too late for any of the decisions it made to be included in
into service verification (EISV) of tanks and their reciprocal recognition. Following that discussion, the Working Group on Tanks was invited to elaborate further on these topics, taking into account the comments made, and to report back during the plenary session in Geneva.
THE JOINT MEETING IS PARTICULARLY CONCERNED WITH MULTIMODAL TRANSPORT AND EQUIPMENT
HCB MONTHLY | DECEMBER 2020
