Spain shows how public procurement can save lives on the road, but new EU rules miss the chance to make it the legal norm

Spain’s Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) has published guidance showing public authorities how to build road safety into tenders for works, goods and services.

The proposed measures include safe mobility plans, road safety training for staff, vehicles with advanced safety technologies and ISO 39001 road traffic safety management certification. An annex to the guide gives examples of real tenders from national, regional and local bodies that authorities can use as a model.

The DGT has also applied the approach to its own purchasing through an internal instruction, which covers contracts such as vehicle rental and purchase and transport services. 

In 2022, 236 people died in work-related road collisions in Spain, and road deaths made up 27% of all occupational deaths. EU-wide around 40% of work related deaths are linked to transport.

The EU’s 2014 public procurement directive already allows authorities to include social considerations such as health and safety. Across the EU, however, the European Commission’s own evaluation, published last year, made no mention of usage of road safety criteria specifically. 

While public authorities can already put green or social criteria at the centre of procurement, Commission research found that their use was neither optimal nor consistent across the EU. Some contracting authorities, for example, fear litigation if they turn down the lowest-price offer. This is due to change. 

On 9 September, the Commission proposed a new regulation on public contracts and concessions. Although occupational health and safety at work is included, the specifics of integrating work-related road safety are not mentioned, and nothing in the proposal would oblige public buyers to consider it. A major change however is that buyers would no longer have to go for the lowest cost option. Instead quality should be the main driving factor and environmental, social, innovation, security and resilience considerations would all count as ‘quality’. 

Public authorities are among the largest buyers of vehicles, transport services and road works in Europe. Spain’s new guidance shows that purchasing power can be used to prevent deaths and serious injuries.

ETSC calls on the European Parliament and Council to specifically include road safety in the social and quality criteria of the new legislation, and to consider minimum requirements for contracts involving vehicles, fleets, road-infrastructure-related works and that this should be valid throughout the entire supply chain.

The proposal now goes to the European Parliament and Council.