The first trial of the new European Crane Operators Licence (ECOL) scheme, initiated by the European association of abnormal road transport and mobile cranes (ESTA), has been completed at Mammoet’s training centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Mammoet, which has been involved with the ESTA working group since its inception five years ago, is the first organisation in Europe to acquire certification for ECOL after the Mammoet Academy was recently audited and certified by Lloyd’s Register.
According to ESTA, four crane operators were processed through the ECOL system, which involved 240 hours of training split evenly between theory and practice.
Philip Grootenboer, training and development manager at Mammoet Europe and a member of the ECOL working group, said: “This new industry standard ensures a high international training quality, which will raise the minimum safety standards and the joint safety level within European countries.”
Currently, crane operator certification standards differ from country to country, which Mammoet says leads to confusion in the industry and a negative impact on safety. It also prevents crane operators from moving around Europe for work, and consequently restricts companies from sending personnel abroad.
The ECOL organisers now intend to run three more pilot projects, one more in the Netherlands plus one each in Denmark and Italy.
