The restriction on the use of hired goods vehicles with a total mass above six tonnes for own-account operations is applied in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. When a company established in these countries wants to transport its own goods, it can either pay a professional haulage operator, rent a number of smaller trucks or buy their own large vehicle. According to the Commission, such vehicles then tend to be under-utilised (empty runs). Moreover, as companies renting vehicles with total laden weight above six tonnes cannot respond to seasonal or peak demands there, the corresponding markets for hired vehicles are under-developed (see Figure 1: the share of Greece, Italy and Portugal in this market segment is much lower than their share of overall EU gross domestic product (GDP); no data are available for Spain).
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