ESTA continues to make rapid progress towards the creation of a transport operators’ licence for Modular Hydraulically Suspended Trailers – such as SPMTs – following the latest round of meetings in Istanbul.
Members representing manufacturers and users from across Europe have agreed a three-tier training structure and a set of learning outcome documents that set out the scope of the training.
The next steps will be to agree a glossary of definitions across multiple languages to ensure common understanding, and then to start work on the item bank – that is the list of questions for the examinations and the answers to go with them to ensure that an operator is fully competent.
The ESTA experts driving the process hope to present the results of their work to the organisation’s Spring meeting at Bauma in Munich next April.
The three-tier training set up was given the final go-ahead by the ECTOL Expert Committee during ESTA’s series of Autumn meetings in Istanbul in partnership with member Turkish association YMB.
The ECTOL Expert Committee – ECTOL stands for European Crane and Transport Operators’ Licence – is the recently created body that oversees the operation of both ESTA’s European crane licence scheme (ECOL), as well as the new transport licence project (ETOL).
The committee agreed that MHST operator training be split into three separate levels:
Level 1: an e-learning module – a no examination entry level to guarantee minimum knowledge and safety
Level 2: in-class learning – concluding with a theory test by a training provider leading to a trailer users’ certificate, and equivalent to the training offered today by many manufacturers.
Level 3: in-class learning – concluding with a combined theory and practical examination by an authorised training provider, leading to a full ETOL operator certificate.
Between Level 2 and Level 3, a 180-day apprentice period is foreseen, with specific actions to be registered in an ETOL task book.
Discussions are now ongoing about precisely what should be included – and excluded – from the different training levels and how the examinations should be arranged.
ESTA Director Ton Klijn said: “It is very important that the manufacturers are on board with this work so they can, for example, say that anyone that buys a few axle lines has to have their operators trained in this way.
“We also hope that major clients will clearly state that this is the standard licence operators will need to be able to work safely on their projects.”
Work on improving safety, efficiency and training during the operation of SPMTs started back in 2022 when ESTA created a new working group to develop its SPMT Best Practice Guide first published in 2016.
This group has met 15 times to date and earlier this year published the well-received “ESTA Guideline for the use of Modular Hydraulically Suspended Trailers – Transport stability”.
The group’s work on training has been integrated into the structure of the existing European Crane Operators Licence to maximise coordinate and efficiency.
The working group full members are as follows: Adrian Zingan, Cometto; Carl Sarens, Sarens; Christian Steck, Goldhofer; Enrico Frigni, Fagioli; Jan-Ebe Boerema, Wagenborg Nedlift; Ludo Mous, Mammoet; Mike Roberts, DNV; Peter Huygebaert, Sarens; Peter Kramer, Goldhofer; Lars Schoedt, TII; Jurjen de Vries, Mammoet; Chris Smith, SC&RA.