Cableway installations for passengers

KEY POINTS

• The legislation covers cable cars, funiculars and chairlifts carrying people, particularly in high-altitude tourist resorts, urban transport and sport facilities. Traction by cable and passenger transport are the two essential criteria that determine whether a cableway installation is covered by the legislation.
• The legislation applies to new cableway installations¹, to modifications to existing cableway installations that require authorisation and to subsystems² and safety components³ for cableway installations. They must all meet the essential safety requirements contained in Annex II to the regulation.
• Annex II contains essential requirements that cover all aspects of cableway installations, including maintenance and operability, ranging from dimensions and assembly to towing and control devices.
• The person or national authority responsible for cableway installations within an EU Member State must carry out a comprehensive safety analysis of each planned installation and include the results in a safety report.
• Member States must:
  • ensure no operating cableway installation is liable to endanger the health or safety of people or property when it is properly installed, maintained and operated according to its intended purpose;
  • set procedures for authorising the construction and entry into service of cableway installations under their jurisdiction;
  • allow cableway installations to remain in operation only if they comply with the conditions set out in the safety report.
• Manufacturers of subsystems and safety components must:
  • ensure these are designed and constructed according to the essential requirements set out in Annex II;
  • keep technical documentation and the EU declaration of conformity⁴ for 30 years;
  • give them an identifiable type, batch or serial number;
  • indicate their contact details;
  • provide easily understandable use and safety information;
  • inform national authorities immediately if a subsystem or safety component presents a risk.
• Obligations are placed on importers and distributors to ensure that the subsystems or safety components satisfy the essential requirements.
• Member States inform the European Commission of the various bodies that are authorised to carry out the conformity assessment⁵ tests.
• The Commission organises exchanges of experience between national authorities.
• Member States were required to have penalties in place for any violations of the law by 21 March 2018.
• The legislation does not apply to:
  • lifts covered by separate EU legislation (Directive 2014/33/EU);
  • pre-1 January 1986 cableways that are still operating and considered to be of historic, cultural or heritage interest, that have not had any significant changes in design or construction, including subsystems and safety components specifically designed for them;
  • installations used for agricultural or forestry purposes;
  • cableways transporting goods and specifically designated people to mountain shelters and huts;
  • leisure equipment in fairgrounds and amusement parks;
  • mining and industrial installations;
  • waterborne installations.

Internal market emergency mode

Amending Regulation (EU) 2024/2748 seeks to avoid disruptions to the internal market in the event of an emergency by ensuring that, once an internal market emergency mode, as set out in Regulation (EU) 2024/2747 (the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act), has been activated by means of an implementing act adopted by the Council of the European Union, designated crisis-relevant goods and services⁶ can be placed on the market as rapidly as possible. Amending Regulation (EU) 2024/2748 adds a chapter to Regulation (EU) 2016/424 detailing how these emergency procedures would apply. The new chapter:

• requires conformity-assessment bodies to prioritise applications for conformity of crisis-relevant products over those for products that are not;
• allows Member States, on an exceptional basis and where there is a duly justified request, to temporarily authorise the placing on the market of subsystems and safety components placed on the market or incorporated into cableway installations without carrying out the normal conformity-assessment procedures, where the involvement of a notified body is mandatory and can ensure that all essential requirements are met;
• permits Member States’ competent authorities to presume that subsystems and safety components placed on the market or incorporated into cableway installations manufactured in accordance with EU standards, relevant applicable national or relevant applicable international standards developed by an accredited standardisation body, identified by the Commission as suitable to reach conformity and ensuring an equivalent level of protection to that offered by the harmonised standards, comply with the relevant applicable essential requirements;
• gives the Commission the possibility to adopt, by means of implementing acts, common specifications on which the manufacturers can rely in order to benefit from a presumption of conformity with the applicable essential requirements (implementing acts laying down such common specifications remain applicable for the duration of the internal market emergency mode).