You can see that after the draw we are still here 🤩. And the truth is that we see as difficult that any draw will make us stop doing what we at Rios Sangiao have been doing for three generations.

We feel fortunate to be able to dedicate ourselves to the same thing that our grandparents and parents dedicated themselves to and that we are passionate about today. And obviously none of this would be possible if our customers were not there, placing their trust in our work every day.

So, taking advantage of these Christmas 🎄and New Year's Eve dates🎆, we would like to congratulate all the teams we work with, the people who collaborate with us, those who make up Rios Sangiao and of course all our customers.

Happy Holidays and Happy 2025 🌟.

We are about to end the year and at this time it is time to take stock of what 2024 has meant for Rios Sangiao and for the transport of liquid foodstuffs in general.

This year has seen a reduction in the alcohol rate for transport professionals and for our part we have reduced it to zero by not allowing our drivers to consume alcohol during working hours.

We have seen the first hydrogen trucks, still in testing, from Daimler and Toyota, which we believe can be the real alternative to fossil fuels. And this brings us to another missed milestone of 2024 which is the electrification of fleets and the very poor geographic spread of electric charging points for trucks that has yet to get off the ground.

The sector has been in turmoil this year, with strikes on several occasions, and is still hovering over our heads with early retirements looming.

The shortage of professional drivers has been a constant in 2024, which looks set to continue in the coming year and brings value to companies that are committed to retaining talent with committed people.

Finally and on a positive note, the market trend in the road transport sector is positive and is expected to grow by 0.4% in the coming years.

The new Internal Market Information System (IMI) platform has been mandatory for posted drivers since Wednesday, February 2. Who is legislating this application? Which companies are obliged to use it? What are the characteristics of this system? Keep reading, because in this post we tell you all about it!

Legislation of the new IMI platform

Previously, transport companies making international trips from Spain had to register with the national platforms of each European country.

With the implementation of the Mobility Package approved in July 2020, this registration is now managed by the European Commission. As of February 2, each company will have to register in the IMI European Platform and complete all the data related to each trip. All previous national registers will also be repealed as of this date.

Which companies will have to use the new IMI platform?

Companies performing transport services in European countries and holding an EU license will be obliged to use the new platform. The obligation is independent of the country of origin, whether it is a Member State or a European Economic Area country, and whether or not it has transposed the European Parliament's Directive 1057/2020 on the posting of drivers. From May, it will also be mandatory for companies with vehicles weighing 2.5 tons or more.

In total, the 33,000 Spanish companies that carry out international transport will start using the new IMI platform. In this way, they will no longer have to register their trips on the national platforms of most European countries.

What is the IMI platform like?

The new registration platform is multilingual and intuitive. In addition, they will be able to receive requests for documents, electronically, from the control authorities of the countries, in case of possible inspections.

The movement declarations registered from the application can have a duration of up to 6 months and can be modified, cancelled or renewed. Each driver must have a copy, physical or digital, of this declaration, together with the supporting document for the transport in question and the corresponding tachograph records. It is possible to print the declarations from the platform or send them by e-mail to the driver.

In the registration of each trip, the company must enter in the application the data related to:

• The transport authorization
• The vehicle
• The driver
• The start and end dates of the trip
• The transport manager's data

What are the implications of the new registration system?

This new way of controlling international transports, together with the new cabotage rules, affects letterbox companies and competition from offshore companies with more advantageous wage conditions. Thanks to the new legislation, these drivers will be paid the minimum wage of the countries in which they carry out each transport. Transit and bilateral transports are excluded.

Thanks to the mandatory registration of each transport on the IMI platform, the control of the activity is more effective than with the previous national platforms imposed in countries such as Germany or France.

Now that we have done this review of the main aspects of the IMI platform, we can establish that its objectives (along with the other measures of the EU Mobility Package) are to improve the European transport market. By means of:

• Fairer and more harmonized rules in the social, labour and fiscal fields.
• The reduction of the distortions that until now occurred among the competition.