Project background
Currently the powerplants of non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) are subject to European regulations, but the vehicles themselves are not subject to European whole vehicle type approval.
This absence of European type-approval regulations causes problems for manufacturers, distributors and importers of NRMM who are required to seek separate approvals for each vehicle type in each Member State.
The European Commission has for some time been engaged in a review of the scope and content of the Machinery Directive and have decided to separate the road safety aspects of NRMM from its scope, thus creating the need for a new top level European type-approval regulation for these vehicles.
Objectives
The project has three core aims:- To ensure an adequate level of road safety for these vehicles. This will be done by identifying the detailed technical requirements to be fulfilled, and conformity procedures to be followed, including any relevant measurement methods, tests and testing methods. In preparation, the project team will catalogue and evaluate existing national regulations applied to NRMM to identify gaps, and European regulations applied to adjacent vehicle types in order to assess and learn from current approaches. This will also lead to a refined taxonomy of NRMM.
- To engage with key stakeholders from industry and technical services. Their role will be to validate the proposed requirements.
- To ensure that the new regulations are fit for purpose and appropriate to the diverse range of NRMM vehicle types. This will be achieved by an iterative evaluation and feedback process.
Timeline and approach
fka and TRL, who are jointly delivering this study for the European Commission, expect the project to take a year to complete, with final recommendations being made in Spring 2024. There will be regular engagement with industry relating to each task.
If you wish to be included in any notifications or invitations relating to the engagement activities with industry or technical services, please provide your contact details to off-highway@trl.co.uk
Launch event
The launch event for stakeholders was held on 3rd May 2023. You can access the slide deck here and watch a recording of the webinar below.
