Road vehicles and equipment

Transport by road covers entails many aspects: the vehicles itself, the maintenance and applications devices of the vehicle, the road infrastructure, and the fuelling infrastructure. Safe, sustainable and reliable road travels rely on the articulation of all these dimensions. In this context, European standards constitutes precious help for the equipment manufacturers and the service providers to develop their product to reach an optimal result.

CEN & CENELEC develop standards on road equipment, alternative fuels infrastructure connection and various vehicle devices applications.

Road equipment

Ensuring safe road network implies to have strong standards of traffic control and other road equipment. CEN & CENELEC develops standards for safety fences and barriers, signs, road markings, traffic lights and noise protection devices.

Road operation equipment & products

Ensuring safe travels on road also entails functional specifications of winter maintenance equipment and road service maintenance equipment for roads, motorways, airbases and their testing for assessment of the equipment performance. CEN & CENELEC develops a series of standards on these different specifications.

Road vehicles

When it comes to road vehicles, CEN and CENELEC standards focus mainly on five specific fields: the safety of roller brake testers, the safety of machines for mounting and demounting vehicles tyres, the repair and maintenance information and the supplementary grip devices, the batteries for electric vehicles and the plastics recycling for road vehicles

Alternative fuels infrastructure

CEN & CENELEC also develop European standard to support the deployment of alternative fuels (electricity, hydrogen, natural gas) infrastructure for road vehicles - amongst other - in the context of the dedicated European legislation. Thanks to these standards, the fuel infrastructure is interoperable with all vehicles across the EU. This allow light and heavy road vehicles to refuel anywhere whatever their brand and whatever the kind of refuelling station.

For more information:

on road operation equipment and products contact Kursley ALAIRY
on road equipment contact Thierry LEGRAND
on road vehicles and alternative fuels infrastructure contact Marc-Antoine CARREIRA DA CRUZ

Technical Bodies

CLC/TC 69X – Electrical systems for electric road vehicles

CEN/TC 226 – Road equipment

CEN/TC 245 – Leisure accommodation vehicles

CEN/TC 268 – Cryogenic vessels and specific hydrogen technologies applications

CEN/TC 301 – Road vehicles

CEN/TC 326 – Natural gas vehicles - Fuelling and operation

CEN/TC 337 – Road operation equipment and products

CEN/TC 354 – Light motorized vehicles for the transportation of persons and goods and related facilities and not subject to type-approval for on-road use

EU legislation and mandates

Directive 96/53/EC road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorized dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorized weights in international traffic

Directive 2014/47/EU on the technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Union

Directive 2014/94/EU on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure

Regulation (EU) 2018/858 on the approval and market surveillance of motor vehicles and their trailers, and of systems, components and separate technical units intended for such vehicles

Regulation (EU) 2019/2144 on type-approval requirements for motor vehicles and their trailers, and systems, components and separate technical units intended for such vehicles

Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure

Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries

M/421 – On-board diagnosis and information management

M/457 – Tyre pressure gauges for motor vehicles and tyre pressure management systems

M/533 – Alternative Fuels Infrastructure

M/584 - Plastics recycling and recycled plastics