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MULTIMODAL • THE JOINT MEETING AGREED A NUMBER OF CHANGES FOR THE 2023 EDITIONS OF RID, ADR AND ADN, THOUGH THESE REMAIN TO BE CONFIRMED BY THE MODAL BODIES THE JOINT MEETING of the RID Committee of Experts and the Working Party on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (WP15) of the UN Economic Commission for Europe held its spring session in Bern, Switzerland from 15 to 19 March 2021, in a hybrid format with both in-person and online attendance. The joint meeting’s main task is to ensure the maximum possible degree of harmonisation between the regulations that govern the transport of dangerous goods by rail (RID), road (ADR) and inland waterway (ADN) in Europe and, increasingly, elsewhere around
The spring session was chaired by Claude Pfauvadel (France) with Silvia Garcia Wolfrum (Spain) as vice-chair. It was attended by representatives of 25 countries (including the US), the European Commission, the EU Agency for Railways (ERA), the Organisation for Cooperation between Railways (OSJD) and 16 non-governmental organisations. Following on from the reports of the Working Group on Tanks and the informal London Group on tank inspection, discussions of new standards and some outstanding items held over from the previous session (HCB
the globe. While it is charged also with aligning the modal regulations with the UN Model Regulations insofar as possible, it concentrates in particular on the rules for the design, construction, maintenance and inspection of the various means of containment.
July/August 2021, page 88), the Joint Meeting moved on to debate some new proposals.
HCB MONTHLY | SEPTEMBER 2021
PROPOSALS AND DECISIONS The first of these came from Germany and sought the inclusion of provisions for the carriage of molten aluminium (under UN 3257
for elevated temperature liquid, nos). At present, according to special provision VC 3, the conditions of carriage are set by the competent authority of the country of origin and Germany felt it would be better to include some uniform minimum requirements. The proposal followed on from an incident in which molten aluminium leaked from a vat after the ventilation valve had been broken off; transport in such vats is not approved in Germany and this shipment had come from another country. Germany supplied a proposal with general requirements, fire and explosion protection standards, and the construction, testing and inspection of vats. The Joint Meeting felt that this needed further investigation and decided to establish a new informal working group, with terms of reference supplied by Germany. Germany also proposed to delete the requirement in 1.8.7.2.3 for technical documentation to be attached to the design type approval certificate, saying it is redundant as it is already annexed to the design type test report. Several delegations raised concerns and the proposal was withdrawn. The secretariat came with a proposal based on the new entries for electronic detonators (UN 0511, 0512 and 0513) that had been
