The role of regional associations in the unification and harmonization of safety and transparency requirements in the freight transportation market
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The subject of the study is the activities of regional integration associations aimed at aligning safety requirements and market transparency in cross-border freight transportation. The analysis covers four regional models: the European Union, North America, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. The focus is not on individual technical requirements for carriers, but on the legal mechanisms through which common standards are formulated, applied, and verified in cross-border circulation. The study examines the relationship between unification, harmonization, and mutual recognition, the role of supranational and national regulation, as well as the combination of prior authorization of the carrier and vehicle for market entry, ongoing documented control, and subsequent verification of compliance with requirements. Based on the EU regulations and directives, American and Canadian rules, ALADI and MERCOSUR agreements, as well as ASEAN acts and sub-regional mechanisms of the Greater Mekong, it demonstrates how varying depths of institutional integration affect the uniformity of regulation. The digital transparency of transportation is specifically investigated: the electronic exchange of transport information, electronic work-time recorders, digital transit systems, and registers are considered as legal infrastructure for demonstrable compliance with mandatory requirements, rather than as standalone goals of digitalization. The methodological foundation consists of a comparative legal analysis of regional models with functional comparisons of the institutions ensuring market entry, ongoing control, and subsequent verification. Additionally, formal-legal analysis of regulations and elements of case law is employed. The scientific novelty lies in constructing a typology of regional freight transport regulation not based on the formal presence of integration agreements, but on the combination of the depth of unification and the level of verification of compliance with requirements. Four models are identified: deep supranational unification of the European Union; coordinated harmonization without a common legislator in North America; framework and institutionally fragmented harmonization in Latin America; multi-level incomplete harmonization in Southeast Asia. It is concluded that the effectiveness of regional regulation is determined not by the number of unified norms or the intensity of digitalization per se, but by the ability of regional and national legal systems to form a continuous, enforceable, and proportional chain of control over cross-border transportation. The precautionary principle is considered as an explanation for the preventive orientation of particular institutions but not as a standalone source of transport obligations.
Author: Alexander Evgen'evich Kirpichev
Institution: Financial University
Language: English
Subfield: Transportation
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7219003760