Cableways Impact Assessment Study - Final Report - saferail.nl

Executive Summary
market. In addition, Europe also has at least 80 manufacturers that supply subsystems
and safety components to cableway manufacturers.
The main impacts of the Cableways Directive can be summarised as follows:
the key impact of the Cableways Directive has been in the area of product
standardisation, facilitating trade between EU Member States and increased
economies of scale but possibly also reducing product variety and exerting
upward pressure on product prices;
European harmonised standards appear to be accepted in many non-European
export markets leading to an improvement in the positioning and visibility of EU
manufacturers globally;
the adoption of the Directive has contributed to increasing the level of safety of
cableway installations in Member States which did not have a strong tradition in
this area or where regulation may have been comparatively less stringent; and
the reduction in the number of cableway manufacturers and the emergence of two
main players that have become increasingly integrated into their upstream supply
chains has at least partially coincided with the entry into force of the Directive.
Some stakeholders appear to believe that the Directive contributed to these
developments. However, the onset of these developments predates the Directive.
Part 2: Assessment of the Different Policy Options
In Part 2, three policy options have been considered for each problem area: Option 1
(no change), Option 2 (changing the Application Guide to the Directive), and Option
3 (changing the Directive).
Problem Area A: Definition of Cableway Installations
The aim of the policy options under consideration is to include novel installations
with a mixed leisure-transport function into the Directive’s scope (Option A2 by
means of soft law and Option A3 by means of changing the Directive). It appears that
installations that would be affected by Option A2 or A3 are presently not sold in the
EU, possibly with the exception of one case (see main report for details). It can be
concluded that Option A2 (which is a flexible instrument that can be relatively easily
and more flexibly adapted in the future) is preferable to Option A3.
Problem Area B: Confusion over Inclined Lifts and Small Funiculars
Option B2 involves amending the Application Guides to the Cableways and Lifts
Directives to emphasize that manufacturers should contact the authorities at an early
stage in the planning and design process to discuss whether a particular installation is
an inclined lift or a small funicular. Option B3 involves amending the Cableways
Directive to explicitly mention that inclined lifts are excluded from its scope. Option
B3 is unlikely to affect current practices but would involve transposition costs.
Option B2 is seen as preferable as it would involve low/moderate costs and it can be
expected to have a positive impact on the level of awareness (particularly in the lifts
sector) as regards the need to reach a formal agreement on an installation’s
classification at an early stage in the planning and design process.
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