For your safety, legislation concerning passenger transport by coach is becoming increasingly regulated.
We wish to remind you of the most important points to enable you to prepare your next trip under optimal conditions.
Regulation of Drivers’ Working Hours
Daily Work Span
The daily work span is the interval between two successive daily rest periods, or between a weekly rest period and the immediately preceding or following daily rest period.
Its normal duration is 12 hours, but it may be extended for drivers:
- up to 14 hours for occasional and tourist services;
- up to 18 hours in the case of a double crew (at least two drivers on board the vehicle, with the exception of the first hour of driving with a crew, during which the presence of a single driver may suffice).
It should be noted that the driver began their day before picking you up and will conclude it after dropping you off on the return journey.
Working Time
The daily effective working time, which is equal to the daily work span minus the total duration of breaks, may not exceed 10 hours.
However, it may be extended for drivers to 12 hours once a week, or even twice a week.
If the driver must perform part of their work between 12 AM and 5 AM, the corresponding daily working time may under no circumstances exceed 10 hours (and therefore cannot be extended to 12 hours).
The weekly duration may not exceed 48 hours in a single week and 44 hours per week on average over 12 weeks.
Rest Day After 6 Working Days
The Labor Code also stipulates that an employee may not work more than 6 consecutive days per calendar week.
The number of daily driving periods, which indirectly implies the existence of a weekly driving duration, is limited to 6 consecutive days.
This is why, for all trips in France lasting more than 6 days, the rental of a coach with a driver for one day on site is mandatory.
The 12-Day Rule
The European Regulation of October 21, 2009, establishing common rules for access to the international market for coach and bus transport services, was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on November 14, 2009.
This regulation reintroduces the so-called “12-day rule” into community legislation:
Consequently, from June 4, 2010, a driver providing an occasional international transport service may postpone their weekly rest period until the end of 12 periods of 24 hours, calculated from the previous normal weekly rest period, provided that:
– The occasional international transport service includes at least one 24-hour period in a Member State or a third country other than the one in which the service commenced.
– And that the driver, at the end of the derogation, takes two regular weekly rest periods (90 hours), or one regular weekly rest period (45 hours) and a reduced weekly rest period of at least 24 hours.
Please note: the reduction must be compensated by an equivalent rest period taken in one block before the end of the third week following the end of the derogation period.
From January 1, 2014, should the 12-day rule be invoked, additional conditions must be adhered to:
– the vehicle must be equipped with a tachograph.
– and, in the event of driving during the time slot between 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM, it will be necessary either to utilize a double crew or to limit the driver’s continuous driving time to 3 hours.
Once Underway…
For safety reasons, the driver may be required to split the driving interruptions (breaks) stipulated in the contract, in compliance with European social regulations. While safety largely depends on the driver, the role of the contracting party remains no less essential, particularly in reminding passengers:
– the obligation to wear a seatbelt in coaches equipped with them (this applies to new coaches registered since October 1, 1999).
– the necessity of maintaining sufficient quiet to avoid distracting the driver, and the obligation to remain properly seated during the journey.
– adherence to return times to the coach after a visit (or excursion), which is essential for respecting the scheduled transport time and regulatory obligations.
Daily Driving Time
The maximum daily driving time (between two daily rest periods, or daily and weekly rest periods), comprising the sum of all driving periods excluding any other activity, is limited to 9 hours, a duration that may be extended to 10 hours twice per calendar week.
Continuous Driving
A single driver may not drive for more than 4 hours and 30 minutes without interruption, after which they must observe an uninterrupted break of at least 45 minutes (unless they take a daily or weekly rest period); this break may be replaced by a break of at least 15 minutes followed by a break of at least 30 minutes distributed during (and therefore before the end of) the continuous driving period.
The new regulation expressly defines a break as “any period during which a driver is not entitled to drive or perform other tasks and which must allow them solely to rest”; during their break, your driver is therefore no longer at your disposal, nor at that of their employer.
The continuous driving time is reduced from 4 hours and 30 minutes to 4 hours in the case of night work (between 9 PM and 6 AM).
Breaks, Rest Periods, and Interruptions
During the so-called interruption periods, and naturally rest periods, the driver is not at the disposal of the employer (nor the clients); they are therefore not required to comply with their directives and may freely engage in personal activities.
Daily Rest
Within each 24-hour period following the end of a daily or weekly rest period, the driver must have taken a new daily rest period.
The duration of the daily rest period is set at 11 consecutive hours, which may be:
– reduced to a minimum of 9 consecutive hours, limited to 3 times between two weekly rest periods;
– split into two periods, the first of which must be an uninterrupted period of at least 3 hours, followed by a second uninterrupted period of at least 9 hours.
Special Case: Should a driver accompany a vehicle transported by a ferry or by train, and simultaneously take a normal daily rest period (i.e., 11 hours), this rest period may be interrupted a maximum of twice by other activities whose total duration does not exceed one hour, provided that the driver has access to a bunk during this rest period.
Coach Classification
By decree of March 19, 2002, France now benefits from its own classification system for tourist coaches and joins the many European countries that have already adopted this system, thereby enabling clients to better identify the offerings of transport providers.
This classification offers numerous advantages:
– To enhance coach tourism by offering a quality guarantee to clients.
– To provide clients with a means of comparison for improved clarity of the offerings.
– To propose to clients a level of service tailored to their needs.
Henceforth, coach classification includes stars, similar to hotel ratings. To date, only transport companies possessing tourism accreditation would be obliged to have their coaches classified.