Higher learning 12 February 2021
Training and certification for crane operators have until recently been national or state concerns. Now they are going continent-wide and crossing borders. Julian Champkin reports.
Europe and the United States have both struggled to impose unified training and certification schemes for crane operators. Both have recently made steps towards a simplified system that will apply across state and national boundaries. Those systems are now in place. Even so, in both continents progress has been painfully slow and the legalities can still be a minefield.
Ton Klijn is the director of ESTA, the body trying to bring some degree of coherence to the licencing of crane operators in the EU. “Every country has its own rules and regulations,” he says. “It made for a situation that can be daft. A mobile crane operator could legally drive his crane from Aberdeen to Sicily but could only operate it in his own country.