The shortage of truck drivers is now recognised as a structural crisis of global dimensions. More than half of operators report major difficulties in finding qualified staff and, according to IRU’s data, the world is short of over 3.6 million truck drivers. In the next five years a further 3.4 million are expected to leave the profession due to retirement, worsening a situation already strained by demographics: only 6.5% of the workforce is under 25, while around one third is over 55. Women remain below 7% in all countries and do not yet represent a significant reserve of replacement labour.
The issue goes beyond the numbers. IRU notes that 85% of road accidents are attributed to human error and that three quarters of those are caused by other road users, not heavy vehicles. Professionalising drivers is therefore essential not only to safeguard the continuity of international logistics but also to strengthen overall road safety.
Against this backdrop, the world road transport association has submitted to the UN a proposal to introduce global qualification standards for drivers, with the aim of making the profession safer, more efficient and more attractive. The idea is to build a shared framework that can be adopted internationally and that includes structured training, recognised certification and ongoing verification. The framework is built around three main pillars — formalise, professionalise and validate — with a fourth, “manage”, sometimes added to cover continuous oversight.
The formalisation phase concerns technical assistance to governments, the review of regulations and the definition of institutional responsibilities. Professionalisation would be channelled through the IRU Academy, a network of accredited curricula and instructor training programmes across more than forty countries, offering theoretical and practical modules on load safety, heavy-vehicle driving and eco-driving techniques. Validation would be handled by IRU Examiner, a digital platform that enables exams and certification with systems described as tamper-resistant, managing the candidate’s full pathway and transparently tracking the training received and the certification awarded.
A distinctive aspect of the proposal is reliance on public–private collaboration. IRU argues that — even in the absence of a complete regulatory framework — digital tools, accredited curricula and technical assistance can rapidly build local capability. Collaboration between public authorities, training bodies and certification organisations thus becomes the engine for aligning national systems with international references such as European frameworks, ECMT and ADR, while allowing adaptation to local specificities. In this way, the qualifications obtained can be comparable and transferable, facilitating the cross-border mobility of drivers — a crucial step to fill staffing gaps and support increasingly interconnected supply chains.
The expected benefits, according to the association, range from fewer accidents thanks to more targeted training, to improved fleet productivity and a stronger professional reputation, through to the wider adoption of eco-driving practices that cut fuel consumption and emissions. A formalised, professional sector would not only make it easier to recruit new drivers but could change the perception of the job itself, which today suffers from unappealing working conditions. IRU has asked for professional qualifications to become a standing item on the agenda of the UN Global Forum on Road Traffic Safety, and the Forum’s chair has already underlined the urgency of launching a concrete pathway in this direction.
Open questions remain. The management of exams and certifications by a private platform requires guarantees of independence and transparency. The “tamper-proof” character of IRU Examiner will need to be verified through independent audits and recognised security standards. Equitable access is another critical point, as digitalisation risks exacerbating disparities in less equipped contexts, particularly for small firms and for candidates from areas with limited connectivity.
