How were waste and passenger transport restructured?

Division 38, for waste collection, treatment and disposal, and the land passenger transport classes in Division 49, were both restructured in NACE Rev. 2.1. The Spanish statistical institute states both changes in its explanatory document: Division 38 was restructured, with greater emphasis on how waste is reused, and the classes for land passenger transport within Division 49 were restructured. The two restructures share a pattern.

In each case, the grouping basis inside the division changed to reflect a feature that had become central to describing the activity: reuse of waste in the first case, and the organisation of passenger transport in the second. Neither division moved to another section. The change operates inside the division, at group and class level.

What changed in Division 38?

Division 38 covers waste collection, treatment and disposal activities, including materials recovery. The restructure places greater emphasis on how waste is reused. That emphasis changes which headings group together activities that recover materials, prepare them for reuse, or dispose of what remains. A reader who follows only the old class titles will miss the new boundary, because titles that once grouped disposal and recovery together may now sit apart, and headings that once sat apart may now sit together under a reuse based grouping. The correspondence table shows the movement for each old class. The explanatory notes for the new classes state what each heading includes and excludes, including where recovery ends and disposal begins. The notes, not the old titles, govern the reading.

Division	Area	Restructure emphasis
38	Waste collection, treatment and disposal	How waste is reused
49	Land transport and pipeline transport	Land passenger transport classes

The table above names the divisions and the emphasis stated by the Spanish statistical institute. Class level rows must be read in the published correspondence table for the classes concerned.

What changed in Division 49?

Division 49 covers land transport and transport via pipelines. The restructure concerns the classes for land passenger transport inside that division. Passenger transport by road and by rail, and the services that support it, are grouped on the basis stated in the notes for the new classes. The Spanish explanatory document does not list the new class titles in the summary passage, and this guide does not invent them. The point that can be stated from the institute document is that the passenger classes were restructured, so a series or a register entry that cites an old passenger class must be traced through the correspondence table before it is compared with a new figure or a new entry. A title that survives the restructure may cover a different scope, and a title that disappears may have its activities divided among several new headings.

How do the two restructures affect series?

Both restructures break simple class level comparisons across the change. A series for the whole of Division 38 or the whole of Division 49 may still be usable with care, because the division boundary is preserved, but a series for a single class inside either division needs the correspondence table and any backcasting that Eurostat and its partners publish. Double reporting, where countries send statistics under both versions in parallel for a period, gives a comparable basis. A reader should use the published backcast or double reported series where one exists, rather than joining old and new class figures by title. Titles are labels. Notes and tables carry the meaning, and the published comparable series carries the numbers.

What do the restructures not decide?

Neither restructure decides the class for a specific operator, and neither decides licensing, tax, funding or collective agreement questions. Waste and transport are both areas where other authorities apply their own rules, and a statistical heading does not replace those rules. The classification describes the activity for statistics. The national statistical institute or the business register holding the record confirms the entry for a specific business. A code in Division 38 or Division 49 does not grant a permit, set a charge, or decide eligibility. The restructure changes how statistics group the activities. It changes nothing else on its own.

Waste was regrouped around reuse, passenger transport classes were regrouped inside Division 49, and the correspondence rows plus the notes for the new classes show the new boundaries.