Lifts

Lifts provide an essential means of comfortable and safe access to modern buildings. The provision of lifts in new buildings and the installation of lifts in many existing buildings have an increasingly important role to play in an ageing society giving growing priority to the social integration of people with special needs. The harmonised European legislation governing the design, manufacturer and installation of lifts has been fully in force since the 1st of July 1999: it has the double aim of permitting the free circulation of lifts within the internal EU market and ensuring a high level of safety for lift users and maintenance staff. While the provisions of the Lifts Directive 95/16/EC are mainly addressed to lift installers and components manufacturers, they also have important implications for the owners and users of lifts.

Technical specifications providing means of satisfying the Essential Health and Safety Requirements (EHSRs) are available in Harmonized European Standards developed by the European Standardization Organisation, CEN: see Lifts standardization. Application of the harmonised standards is voluntary, but when the references of these standards are published in the Official Journal of the European Union, their application confers a presumption of conformity with the essential health and safety requirements they cover.

The Lifts Directive provides a wide choice of conformity assessment procedures covering the design, manufacture assembly, installation and final inspection of lifts, and the design and manufacture of lift safety components. All the procedures involve recourse to Notified Bodies. In some procedures, the Notified Bodies check the conformity of a model of a lift or safety component. In other procedures, Notified Bodies approve and monitor the quality assurance system of the lift installer or safety component manufacturer who is then able to assess the conformity of his products himself. Installers and manufacturers may address any Notified Body in the EU that is approved for the relevant procedure. The certificates issued by a Notified Body are valid in all EU countries. After completing the appropriate conformity assessment procedure, the lift installer or safety component manufacturer draws up and signs an EC declaration of conformity for the product and affixes the CE conformity marking on it.

See also the Guidance documents available, as well as the contact points and the working structure for the Lifts Directive. The Guide to application of the Lifts Directive 95/16/EC (15 May 2007) is now available.

The safety of existing lifts (that is to say lifts installed before the Lifts Directive came into force) is subject to national regulations. Commission Recommendation 95/216/EC invites Member States to take all necessary action to ensure a satisfactory level of maintenance for existing lifts and to improve the safety of these lifts.A Study on technical assessment of means of preventing the crushing risk on Lifts subject to Directive 95/16/EC is available.