ADR
ADR is the European agreement on the carriage of dangerous goods by road. It determines classification, packing, labelling and the transport documents, not the goods code on the customs declaration.
What does ADR regulate, and what does it not?
ADR, the Accord relatif au transport international des marchandises Dangereuses par Route, is the regime for dangerous goods by road in Europe. It assigns the substance a UN number, a class and a packing group, and lays down how you pack, label, segregate, mark and document. It is revised every two years. Anyone who drives on an old table drives on the wrong instruction. ADR is not customs law. The import declaration in DMS does not ask for a UN number, a class or a tunnel code. What Customs does see are the prohibitions and restrictions at the goods code: dual-use, precursors, fluorinated gases, PIC. That check runs through TARIC. ADR runs through the carrier, the terminal and, in the Netherlands, the ILT. A consignment can be sound on the customs side and still stay at the terminal gate, because the ADR document, the labels or the written instructions are missing. The other way round, a tidy ADR consignment can stall in DMS on a missing document code. Two regimes, one truck.
Which documents does ADR require on the road?
The transport document names the UN numbers, the proper shipping name, the class, the packing group, the number and kind of packages, the total quantity and the name of the consignor and the consignee. In addition the written instructions (the accident sheet) belong in the cab, in a language the driver commands, and the driver must hold the right ADR driving licence for the class they carry. The document is not the safety data sheet. The SDS underpins the classification, especially in section 14, but it is not a transport document. Anyone who gives the driver a sixteen-page SDS instead of the ADR document gives them the wrong piece. Anyone who conversely puts only the ADR document in the customs file and no SDS has, at a control, nothing with which to underpin the classification. On a combined journey, sea plus road, IMDG documents and ADR documents sit side by side. The classification is the same. The packing instructions, the quantity limits and the paper regime differ. Take them over, do not retype them.
How do the nine classes relate to what you put in the file?
Class 1 to 9 cover explosives, gases, flammable liquids, flammable solids, oxidising substances, toxic and infectious substances, radioactive material, corrosives and the residual category. Within a class sit packing groups I, II and III for the degree of danger, and labels for subsidiary risk. Those data come from the classification of the substance, not from the trade name. In the file they belong as master data on the article: UN number, class, packing group, proper shipping name, tunnel code, whether the substance may go as limited quantity. A declarant who retypes that per consignment from the SDS makes exactly the errors a control is built for: a 3 instead of an 8, a II instead of an I, an old shipping name. Limited quantity (LQ) and excepted quantity are exemptions with their own marks and their own quantity limits, not a free pass to document nothing. A webshop consignment of perfume can be LQ on the road and still ask for a full customs declaration. The one regime does not let the other go.
What must a customs declarant do with ADR, if it is not on the declaration?
Three things. First: test the goods code for measures. A substance with a UN number often also has a TARIC measure, and without the matching document number DMS refuses the declaration. Second: make the file complete for the control. At a physical control the SDS is the first thing asked for, and then the transport document. Third: do not let the chain stall at the terminal or with the carrier, because the ADR document is missing while the MRN is already in. The tension sits in the planning. The declaration can be accepted in minutes. The trailer only moves once the driver has the document, the packages carry the right labels and the written instructions sit in the cab. Anyone who only looks for those documents after release buys standing time with a green declaration. On export the same applies in reverse order. The export declaration goes out, the trailer is loaded, and only at the gate it turns out that the class on the document does not match the substance. Then the consignment stands still with an MRN that is already on its way in the chain.
Who enforces ADR in the Netherlands, and how does that touch Customs?
The ILT enforces the carriage of dangerous goods by road. Customs enforces the declaration, the prohibitions and the restrictions. At a control they can stand side by side: one looks at label, packing and document, the other at goods code, value and documents. A mismatch between SDS, ADR document and declaration is then the first thing that stands out. That mismatch is almost always a retyping error or a master-data item that was not updated after a new version of the SDS. Section 14 has changed, the UN number or the class has been adjusted, and the article file still carries the old value. On the road that is an offence. On the declaration it is a classification that comes back into question. Keep one source. The SDS feeds the classification, the classification feeds the ADR document, the goods code feeds the declaration, and the three have to be traceable to the same substance. Where they diverge, it is not 'a transport issue' or 'a customs issue'. It is one article card that does not fit.
What changes if the same substance goes from the road onto the sea or into the air?
The classification, UN number, class, packing group, stays the same. The regime does not. IMDG at sea, IATA-DGR in the air, RID on rail, ADN on inland waterways. Packing instructions, quantity limits, segregation tables and the document itself differ. The air is the strictest: substances that may go on the road without more are forbidden on board a passenger aircraft. For a file that arrives by sea and continues by road, two document sets therefore sit in the same folder, with the same classification underneath. If one set diverges from the other, something has been retyped. On a multimodal file that is the first check before the trailer is ordered. Put the mode in the consignment master data, not only on the consignment note. An article that carries 'ADR class 3' is not thereby airworthy, and a declarant who only knows the road books a flight the airline refuses. The refusal then comes after the export declaration.