The company’s Homologations team is already working on the foreseen changes for European standards that will affect minibuses from June 2022 onwards.
The set of regulations that any vehicle must comply could be compared with a tree: the roots are the old laws, which have evolved to strengthen a trunk of standards created by the European Union, which then branch out in each country. As with vegetation, all legislation progresses are renewed. Now, a period full of novelties is foreseen for the coming years: between June 2022 and 2024 a series of updates to the various European directives are planned, which aim to reinforce safety for pedestrians and the most vulnerable people, the General Safety Regulation R(EU) 2019/2144.
In order to be able to transmit maximum peace of mind to its clients, Integralia’s Homologations team has been analyzing these regulations for several months: “We want to be ahead of the curve and this requires a prior effort if our objective is to offer our clients the maximum legislative guarantees in all our processes in the short and long term,” explains Ignacio Roncal, head of Homologations at Integralia.
Regulation No. 107 of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is the most important safety regulation, since it regulates everything related to the interior space, weights, dimensions and, in general, the habitability of a minibus. “Each vehicle model has its own homologation, and they are constantly being updated to keep up to date on safety issues,” says Ignacio Roncal. Service doors, emergency doors… the changes affect many parts of the vehicles. Mandatory transformations will begin to be implemented in all vehicles from the second half of this year and will culminate 48 months later.
ISO 9001, quality certification for Integralia
In addition to understanding the entire legal and technical framework required by the authorities of each country, Integralia’s Approvals Department works on obtaining ISO certificates on a daily basis. As it has done every year since 2003, Integralia has updated its ISO 9001 certificate, which externally and independently guarantees the quality of the processes with which Integralia works. In the same way, the Mercedes Benz Van Patner certificate has been renewed. Congratulations team!