Speaker
Description
Swiss competent authorities (Swiss CA) were approached by consignors reporting more and more difficulties with the international transport of approved packages, which are subject to validations. Further investigation and discussion on international level provided significant issues with respect to national implementation of validation procedures and requirements. As a result, transports must be cancelled or have to be prepared right in advance.
From the operational point of view, the country-of-origin approval is usually valid for five years. The revision process starts earlier, at least one year before the expiration date. If a transport through multiple countries is prepared, each transit country and the country of the consignee has to be approached for a validation. The assessment scope and the necessary time for review of validation applications have increased in recent years. If the country-of-origin approval is already running, the time for getting validations and following authorizations for the transport might be too short. A revision of the country-of-origin approval starts the process again.
This identification and the following discussion in international networks such as the European Association of Competent Authorities (EACA) provides different national practices and reasons for the extended assessment scope: the extent of the existing country-of-origin assessment results to be considered during validation varies between authorities, the scope of assessment varies due to the needs and the resources of authorities (do not approve each content specification), full scope assessments due to administrative reasons take place (requirements of national laws or international agreements), assessment of boundary conditions in addition to the main focus of assessment (mechanical and thermal inputs for criticality safety assessments)
Additional issues are the use of the identification mark to clarify differences between the country-of-origin approval and the validation, the format of certificates or the evolution of shock absorber dimensions and handling attachments in country-of-origin approvals with consequences on operational aspects such as routing restrictions for road and rail mode and proper handling of the package.
The contributions during international discussions result in a questionnaire, which is launched within the European authority network EACA. The questionnaire will be presented including the background of the individual questions. Other means to facilitate the preparation of transports will be addressed. They are also related to international cooperation.
