More grief for non-swiss transfer drivers using GVA (possibly)

A snowHead

Hi Guys.... Lot of rumour, confusion, and lack of information generally on this one. Hope I can help clarify a few things.

First of all, anyone operating only 8-seat minibuses in France has a French 'Interior' licence. It is brown in colour. It is what it is. I.e. it is for transport within France only. It does not cover transporting of passengers into either Switzerland or Italy.

There are two ways that a French Interior licence is issued:

1. The so called 'florist licence' this was issued free, to anyone where the transporting of passengers was secondary to their main business, and the turnover from transporting passengers did not exceed more that 50% of the main business. However, it only covered 1 8 seat minibus, and was limited to transport in the department where based and any adjacent department only. No qualifications were required by the operator/owner of the vehicle. This type of licence was frequently issued to chalet owners.

As mentioned above. This licence is being scrapped in 2014. I thought it was January 2014, not December 2014 so those with this type of licence should check.

If you have this type of licence, you are unlikely to meet the Swiss requirements.

2. The second type of French Interior licence was issued to passenger transport companies operating either more than 1 8-seat vehicle or larger vehicles. To get it you need to have financial standing and the owner/operator also needs to have an Operators CPC (certificate of professional competence). This is different from the Drivers CPC. This interior licence is valid for transport throughout France.

The Operator CPC course can be taken in the UK. (it's easier because of the language Happy

BUT. This course structure has now recently changed - The last exam under the old course structure has/is taking place now in December 2013. The new course requirements are that it is a 10 day course, followed by a 4 hour written exam. The pass mark has also been raised.

Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that whatever type of Interior Licence you have, it is just that, an Interior Licence. The equivalent of a UK National Operators Licence.

Because Geneva Airport is so close to the French Border there has been a long-standing arrangement that the Swiss will let operators with an Interior Licence access Switzerland to reach the airport. (But without the permission of the Swiss is would be illegal).

3. The third type of licence is the 'International Operators Licence or EU Community Licence'. (Fortunately, this is the licence I have). It allows you to transport passengers throughout the EU member states and the EEA which includes Switzerland. The transport is covered by existing International treaties and therefore is not subject to the new Swiss requirements. We have had this confirmed in writing from Berne.

To get this, you have to have passed an International CPC exam, and have a higher level of financial standing. For example, to run the fleet that we do, we have to prove available funds of 150K.

Now, someone above has mentioned that perhaps the solution is to put their 8-seat drivers through a Driver CPC course to obtain a qualification. Unfortunately, this will not work. It is not possible to take a Driver CPC course UNLESS you have already passed at least a D1 minibus driving test. the course provider will not enrole you on the course (or if they do) will not issue a certificate of attendance unless you have a valid current D1 driving qualification on your licence.

Someone, else above has referred to 'Grandfather rights' of pre 1997 driving licences, as they have on them a D1 listing and a symbol of a minibus. However, these also have a code 101 restriction. The code 101 means 'not for hire and reward'. This means you cannot carry passengers where you are paid for the driving, and cannot carry passengers where they pay for the transport either directly to the company or driver, or indirectly, as part of a holiday or accommodation cost.

Please do not think that if you have a D1 on your pre 1997 driving licence that you can drive for a transfer company or a chalet etc. You can't and if you are caught you will be seriously fined, and will have invalidated your vehicle insurance etc. Many, many people make this mistake. To drive a minibus with more than 8 passengers seats professionally you MUST have taken the separate D1 driving test and obtained a Driver CPC, and if driving a vehicle later than 2006 (which will be fitted with a digital tachograph) then you must have and use a Driver Digital Tachograph card.

It is true that you could drive around to the French side of Geneva Airport. If you stay in France the whole way, then it takes an additional 45 minutes. However, there are serious roadworks on the single road to the French side within the airport grounds. Apparently the Swiss regulation does not prohibit you from dropping off at Geneva Airport, just collecting passengers.

There is lots of lobbying by the French Government Departments and larger transfer companies at the moment. Jean-Luc, head of passenger services, at GVA airport has recently posted on the welove2ski forum that the airport will not be restricting minibuses coming into the airport. However, that ofcourse does not stop the Swiss Police from taking action.

Hope this helps provide some more information for some people.

Cheers.

Andrew

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Chamexpress, Thanks, very informative. Just one question, if you and presumably all the larger operators have the International Licence and it gives you immunity to the recent changes, why would it be that the larger transfer companies are lobbying the government? Do you mean it allows the company to operate in Swiss, but that your drivers are still affected by the rule change?

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Hi Shep...

There lies the conundrum: Because most of the larger operators only run 8-seat vehicles, they only asked for, and the DDE only issued, Interior Licences. The DDE will not issue you with an International EU Community Licence unless you are also operating vehicles of more that 8-seats. We for example have 13 x 16 seaters and 2 x 34 seaters, as well as 14 x 8 seaters.

Hi Charlie...

The IOA/EU Licence is issued to the Company for all of its vehicles. Therefore, the drivers of those vehicles are exempt according to Berne.

However, legally on these proposed restrictions, the Canton of Geneva (I believe) would fall down in court:

They are trying to say that all limousine and taxi drivers must be registered/declared. But, if you read carefully through the Ltaxi law you will see that by their own definition a transfer vehicle is not a taxi or a limousine. They say that a taxi must be fitted with a taxi meter, which transfer vehicles are not. And they say that 'a limousine is a vehicle hired for a period of time by people that know each other. (I have paraphrased that). So, if you are doing private transfers you would have a hard time getting around that one. But, if you are doing shared transfers, then people do not mainly know each other and a paying for per seat, and going to different destinations.. so that can't possibly legally be a taxi or limousine.

However, of course to argue this you would have to be in front of a judge. It would be pointless arguing to Swiss Plod on the street on a busy Saturday.

Cheers.

Andrew

You'll need to Register first of course.

Solution: all the titchy operators in (for example) Morzine band together and rent a coach to do their transfers each week. They'd probably save money by not having their vans pranged by staff all the time. Alternatively, someone needs to do a Bensbus - volunteers?

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

i don't think this is unique to ski transfers or even Swiss regulators. Anything to do with any form of professional driving is getting swamped with regulation.

To move horses as part of a business, even on a part time basis, I need an Cat C driving licence, a drivers CPC, a Wato Horse handling licence, digital tachograph card, vehicle inspected by defra every 5 years.

Then I need an operators licence, which requires the passing of an Operators CPC exam (around A level standard), proof of cash reserves for each vehicle, a location that is approved for use, a contract for maintenance for each vehicle for effectively an MOT every 8 weeks, a whole range of processes that have to be inspected, and a range of insurances.

All this just to transport horses on a part time basis.

Just reading Chamexpress, description of what has to be done for geneva makes me shudder. No doubt it protects the swiss, it also maybe stops cowboy operators but you do wonder where we will end up with all this bureaucracy.

After all it is free

So the merde hit the fan at GVA yesterday with a number of smaller transfer operators forced to lay on swiss taxis to the border for their passengers, where they then transferred into the minibus. Apparently although an agreement to suspend the new requirements until April was (though to have been) reached between the transfer companies and the Geneva Canton employment authorities back in December, the authorities sent a squad of inspectors to the airport yesterday who had no knowledge of any such agreement!

The larger companies managed to operate as usual (well apart from all the hassle), but were told that no-one without the full paperwork will be allowed to pick-up from next weekend onwards. A meeting is set for Wednesday, but if no solution is found next weekend will be very interesting with 60,000 skiers arriving and not a single non-swiss operator (so I'm reliably informed) having all the required paperwork. Shocked

shep, would it be possible to work via the French side of the airport?

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

are the swiss operators excluded, or at least ok? I'm thinking specifically alpybus?

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Sounds like Lyon could be getting more popular. That would cause even more rpoblems.

snow reports

Arctic Roll, legally yes, realistically no.
emwmarine, I know of several chalets that already stopped their own transfers and now point at the commercial transfer operators. I also know of some that are contemplating dropping GVA and suggesting Chambery. Potentially works for part of the French alps, but boogers up those in PdS, Chamonix etc.
I predict carnage if 50% of GVA traffic gets re-routed to French airports.

Arctic Roll, eddiethebus, As you'll see from this thread, there is much misinformation and confusion around, and as an interested bystander I don't have all the answers. I assume the drivers for any company, Swiss or otherwise, now need to have the Swiss work-permit (or Swiss nationality) which is the cause of the current dispute. I guess a Swiss registered company is more likely to have swiss resident drivers, but who knows...

Legally it appears that using the french-side of the airport would be ok (for those legal to drive a minibus for hire & reward in france), but in practice the airport police will not allow the half-dozen spaces outside the terminal to be blocked by up to 300 minibuses at a time! So they would turn them away.

You know it makes sense.

ChamExpress Andrew. I have a blue International operating licence in France and it is only valid for "autocars et autobus" i.e. vehicles bigger than 8 passenger seats. Therefore your 8 seaters are either not covered or you have a seperate "National" (brown) licence for your 8 seaters. Are you misleading the forum in order to gain positive publicity from the Swiss problem?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

No misleading of the forum. Not interested in 'positive publicity' only a genuine desire to help provide information. We mainly operate larger vehicles to the airport now anyhow and have been approved by the airport and issued with P33 parking permits for our fleet.

I may be wrong, but I suspect the smaller operators to which Shep refers to above, are those that were parking in the normal car parks at the weekend as P33 was virtually deserted over the weekend. (compared to how it used to be).

Help!!

More grief for non-swiss transfer drivers using GVA (possibly)

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