October 2026: The Digitalisation of Land Transport Begins
The road transport sector, which has for years been calling for innovation and improvements, both to optimise operations and to enhance the quality of life of its workers, is now driving transformation across a wide range of areas. Promoting more sustainable vehicle fleets, regulating autonomous vehicles and ensuring more efficient and safer monitoring of road transport are now among the top priorities in Europe and Spain, whilst at the same time presenting new challenges in the regulatory sphere.
In line with this roadmap, the legal framework set out in Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2020 on electronic freight transport information (eFTI), designed to facilitate the electronic communication of regulatory information relating to the carriage of goods within the territory of the European Union.
The eFTI Regulation sets out rules for the electronic sharing of freight transport information between businesses and authorities, without requiring a specific document, but rather a common method of accessing the shared data. Furthermore, the aim of this systematisation is to ensure that all information is reliable and verifiable, with guarantees of authenticity, integrity, traceability and clarity, whilst minimising delays caused by paperwork and redundant or avoidable administrative procedures.
Digitisation of the Administrative Control Document (DeCA)
Act 9/2025 of 3 October on Sustainable Mobility (published in the Official State Gazette No. 291 of 4 December 2025, and in force since 5 December 2025), stems from the aforementioned European regulation, and one of its aims is to facilitate the establishment of an efficient, sustainable and resilient multimodal freight transport system, harnessing the potential of digitalisation and technology.
In its eighth transitional provision, concerning the digitisation of the administrative control document required for the provision of public road haulage services and the journey log required for the provision of public road passenger transport services, it states that the administrative control document must be in digital form within ten months of the law coming into force. It is worth remembering that this document must be issued for all public goods transport, except in certain specific cases such as removals or light parcel deliveries, amongst others.
Therefore, the administrative control document must be in digital format from 5 October 2026(although it appears that some companies and self-employed workers have already been using it on a voluntary basis since mid-2025, in order to gradually adapt to electronic systems).
The requirements and characteristics that administrative control documents must meet, in their capacity as a mandatory administrative record accompanying goods transported by road and containing details of the shipper, the carrier and the vehicle, as well as the date, the origin and destination of the load, the characteristics of the goods or any observations to be included, are already regulated by Order FOM/2861/2012 of 13 October (amended by Order TRM/282/2026 of 25 March). This Order is supplemented by the Resolution of 22 May 2023 issued by the Directorate-General for Land Transport, which sets out the specific requirements for the electronic version of that document (DeCA).
A document that incorporates the details of the consignment note and the CMR contract, as set out in Article 2.2 of the aforementioned Order FOM/2861/2012: “2. In cases where the transport is documented in a consignment note or other supporting documentation in accordance with the relevant national, European Union or international legislation in force, this shall serve as an administrative control document provided that it contains all the information set out in Article 6 of this Order.”
Order FOM/2861/2012 also states that the contractual shipper and the actual carrier are responsible for ensuring that the control document exists and is correctly completed, as well as for the obligation to carry it in the vehicle. According to the document, the shipper was responsible for data relating to the cargo and the contract, whilst the carrier was responsible for information relating to the performance of the transport. However, following the amendments introduced by the recent Order TRM/282/2026 of 5 March (Article 2), responsibility for ensuring that the control document exists and is correctly issued is now shared between shippers and carriers. Although Order TRM/282/2026 does not specify who is responsible for producing it, it does confirm that both parties will be jointly and severally liable if the document is missing or contains errors.
In any case, regardless of who issued it, the document must be available in digital format before the vehicle leaves its point of origin.
Electronic Consignment Note (eCDP) and Digital CMR (eCMR)
Digital consignment notes or CMR contracts are the electronic version of the paper document that supports the transport of goods by road (domestic or international) agreed between the shipper and the carrier, and their main purpose remains to prove the existence of a transport contract (and its terms and conditions), as well as the carrier’s receipt of the goods. Although their digitisation is not yet mandatory, this is also a feasible option given their link to the administrative control document.
In fact, a domestic consignment note must include the minimum information required by law, as set out in Article 10 of Law 15/2009 of 11 November on contracts for the carriage of goods by land; similarly, the content of a CMR contract must meet certain minimum requirements under the CMR Convention for international transport (Article 6). However, this does not prevent them from including the information required for the administrative control document (Article 6 of Order FOM/2861/2012), thereby facilitating the issuance of a single digital document that complies with the parameters and requirements for the carriage of goods by road.
Conclusions
Among the most significant improvements expected to result from the proposed document digitisation project are key aspects such as:
- To facilitate administrative inspections of transport operations.
- To assist interested parties in issuing and obtaining copies of transport-related documents.
- To ensure security by guaranteeing that documents (reports, terms and conditions, cargo details, reservations or ‘remarks’, etc.) cannot be altered.
- To facilitate real-time monitoring of transport.
- Enable modifications to be made during transport.
- To streamline the service billing processes.
- Reduce administrative costs.
- To obtain reliable and accurate evidence for use in legal proceedings.
- Facilitate the claims process.
Undoubtedly, the ultimate aim is to improve efficiency and traceability, but this will also require strict compliance with data protection and confidentiality regulations, as the information shared must be underpinned by an ecosystem of certified and interoperable platforms.
Focusing on our sector, it is worth noting that this approach also aims to facilitate the resolution of disputes between carriers and shippers, thanks to its immutability and digital security. We must not forget that, in any claim or incident arising in the context of a road transport contract, the admissibility of evidence is an essential and decisive factor in the defence of the positions of the parties involved.
