EU REACHES AGREEMENT ON BUS PASSENGERS RIGHTS

The Council of Transport Ministers has successfully reached a political agreement on a draft regulation that grants new rights to passengers of buses and coaches.

The deal is part of a wider EU policy to ensure equal treatment of passengers, regardless of the mode of transport chosen.

The agreement includes rules on the transport operator's responsibility for death and injury of passengers and the right to information, compensation and assistance for passengers in the event of cancellations or severe delays. In addition, the regulation establishes the right to information and assistance for passengers with disabilities or reduced mobility.

The most notable developments to the agreement are in relation to the scope of the agreement and the provisions concerning death or personal injury and loss of or damage to luggage.

Scope

Defining the scope of the rules and regulations is imperative to understanding how the proposals will affect operators in the UK. The Council has had trouble in coming to a decision of what types of journey should be subject to the proposal. A number of options were discussed including only making "long distance travel" subject to the rules. However this was not upheld due to difficulties in defining "long distance". Under the new agreement, the rules shall apply to all regular services however member states may exclude regional, urban and suburban transport (except on certain principles considered essential, such as non-discrimination in rates and transport conditions and the ban on turning down passengers with disabilities) from being subject to the rules. Member states may also grant derogations for certain national services for a maximum period of five years, renewable twice (ie 15 years). They may also grant derogations, also for five years and renewable, for services that continue beyond the EU's borders. These exemptions give a large degree of flexibility to individual member states therefore the impact of the proposals in terms of scope may not be as great as once thought.

Death or Personal Injury and loss of or damage to luggage

Earlier drafts and discussions pondered the provision of "strict liability" (i.e. not being able to exclude liability by proving that the accident was not caused by the operator).This would have certainly sent a shockwave through the industry and would go against established principles of justice in that an operator would be liable until proven innocent. The principle of strict liability may also have opened the floodgates to a number of unworthy and fraudulent claims. This would cause a huge expense to operators who, in the current cold economic climate, are particularly aware of keeping costs (in particular insurance premiums) to a minimum. Of course, increased costs to the operator would have to be passed to passengers through higher fares or reduced services.

However, this unwelcome initiative has since been watered down and the agreement is now silent on the issue of strict liability. This means that the usual rules of liability for each Member State will apply (i.e. for the UK, the party who is at fault for the accident shall pay the compensation). Additionally, the burden of compensation should not be such that it would make the operator go out of business. The new agreement also agrees that there shall be minimum "upper limit" of compensation amounts for death or personal injury which stands at €220,000. It should be noted that this is a minimum threshold figure and not a guaranteed lower limit of compensation available to a passenger. The agreement also establishes a minimum upper limit of compensation in case of accident and loss of or damage to baggage which would be €1,200.

It should be noted that the new proposals included in the agreement are not yet concrete and will now be passed to the European Parliament for the second reading.

From an operator perspective, the current agreement is no where near as weighted towards the passenger as previous drafts and the inclusion of more exemptions and derogations to the application of the rules will be welcomed. However, the exemptions may bring inconsistency to the way the rules are managed across the EU member states.

Oliver Dent

Backhouse Jones Solicitors