Legislation

Eumos 40509: the legal framework of transport packaging and its testing.

Under the so-called “Roadworthiness” package, the European regulator provides a legislative framework for the securing of commercial vehicles (including all vehicles with a maximum mass above 3.5 tonnes). This framework is included in Art. 13 of the Directive 2014/47/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 on roadside technical control of commercial vehicles.

In the case of further inspection of Annex III, it appears that not only the way in which the load is secured to the vehicle is checked, but that the transport packaging of the cargo is also looked at. In particular, the question arises whether the transport packaging allows a correct securing of cargo in a sufficient way!
Specifically as far as packaging is concerned, the regulations refer to the European standard EUMOS 40509. (see Annex III.5). This standard describes a test method to test the soundness of the transport packaging of a load.

In particular, there are the following regional criminal regulations in this area:

Flanders: The revision of Art. 45a of the Road Code following the Decision of the Flemish Government amending the royal decree of 1 December 1975 laying down general regulations on the police of road traffic and the use of public roads, as regards cargo fuses, as far as Flanders is concerned
Wallonia: The Walloon Government’s ruling of 6 July 2017 relating to the technical control of commercial vehicles registered in Belgium or abroad.
Brussels: The Brussels-Capital Region Government’s Order of 19 July 2018 on the technical roadside control of commercial vehicles registered in Belgium or abroad.

These three laws are different but similar. All 3 require them to describe loading units (pallets) in 6 points but also that these loading units must be subject to the EUMOS 40509 standard.

This test method explicitly allows certain types of loading units to be certified with their packaging for certain forces (expressed in G-forces). There is some debate about what exactly is a transport-safe packaging and in particular which G-forces should be able to withstand packaging in order to be considered transport safe, under the legislation. The European Best Practices Guidelines on cargo securing for Road Transport, which are also legally recognised in Belgian Law (see for example, in Flanders art. 45bis §6 1 of the Road Code), provide for a minimum of 0.5G.

CS-TS provides you with a transport-safe certificate when your charging unit passes 0.5G.

The EUMOS 40509 standard

The new cargo securing legislation 2019 concerns the basic rules of cargo securing for road transport. This load securing legislation determines how a loading unit (pallet) must be bundled and packed. Article 45bis below goes into more detail about this.

Art 45a § 3
Loading unit means a quantity of goods bundled or otherwise assembled in such a way that the treatment, stacking and storage can take place as a single package.

If the primary packaging or loading unit of cargo is damaged or is not sufficiently sturdy for the safe transport of the goods, the packer and/or shipper must additionally cover the goods with a transport package that is undamaged and sturdy enough to allow adequate load securing.

The shipper shall provide the carrier with which he relies in advance in writing any information that the carrier deems necessary to stow the goods. Such information shall consist at least of:

the nature of the charging unit;
the mass of the load and each loading unit;
the position of the centre of gravity of each charging unit if it is not in the middle;
the external dimensions of each loading unit;
the restrictions on stacking and the direction to be applied during transport;
the friction factor of the goods, if not listed in Annex B to EN 12195:2010 or in the Annex to the IMO/UNECE/ILO

Art 45a § 6
The securing methods and means are in accordance with the most recent version of the following standards:
EUMOS 40509 Transport – Packaging