The National Transport Council, chaired by the Minister for Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, has reported on a call for aid to digitise private passenger transport companies providing road transport services and private companies involved in road freight transport, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan – funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU. The meeting was attended by the Balearic Islands’ Minister of Mobility and Housing, Josep Marí, and the Director-General of Mobility and Land Transport, Jaume Mateu, on behalf of the Balearic Islands.

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Work is currently being finalised on the royal decree that will materialise the direct granting of aid for the digitalisation of private passenger transport companies providing road transport services and private companies involved in the transport of goods by road (endowed with 110 million euros).

This royal decree will reflect the distribution criteria communicated at the Sector Conference of 6 July 2022, which for the Balearic Islands is €2,723,026.

This aid corresponds to line of action 15, in the policy lever II “Resilient infrastructures and ecosystems”, component 6 of which is called “Sustainable, safe and connected mobility”, and in particular to aid aimed at the digitalisation of private passenger and freight transport companies, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan – financed by the European Union – Next Generation EU.

Final recipients of the aid

The ultimate recipients of the aid will be both private legal entities that fall within the definition of SMEs in accordance with the provisions of Annex 1 of Commission Regulation (EU) 651/2014 of 17 June 2014, declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty, and natural persons, when, in both cases, they meet one of the following conditions:

(a) they hold one of the following authorisations in force on the date of application for the aid:

• A public goods transport authorisation entitling them to carry out transport with vehicles or combinations of vehicles with a maximum mass of more than 3.5 tonnes, identified by the code MDPE.
• An authorisation for occasional public passenger transport by bus, identified by the code VDE.
• A public goods transport authorisation for the carriage of goods by vehicles up to a maximum mass of 3.5 tonnes, identified by the code MDLE.
• A transport operator authorisation authorising the intermediary in the contracting of public transport of goods, identified in the register by the code OT.

b) On the date of application for the aid, they provide public urban bus transport services and are exempt from obtaining any of the authorisations included in point a) of this section.

c) They are involved in the process of transporting goods as loader/unloader or dispatcher/receiver, as reflected in Law 16/1987 of 30 July 1987 on the organisation of land transport, in the control document and in the ADR.

Eligible actions and requirements

Eligible actions will be the categories of digitisation solutions listed below, with the requirements and amounts established in the Royal Decree. In order to establish these criteria, compliance with state aid regulations has been taken into account, as well as compliance with the principle of not causing significant harm to the environmental objectives set out in Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2020 on establishing a framework to facilitate sustainable investments and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/2088, with the following categories:

(a) Category 1: Management of electronic control documents

(b) Category 2: Second-generation smart tachographs

(c) Category 3: Integration of electronic control documents into management systems

(d) Category 4: Implementation of TMS/ERP systems

(e) Category 5: Implementation of EDMS systems

(f) Category 6: BMS systems upgrades

(g) Category 7: Support for passenger services

(h) Category 8: Implementation of e-complaint applications