The ECJ in Federacion de Servicos Privados v Tyco held that where workers do not have a fixed or habitual place of work, time spent travelling from home to the first customer and from the last customer to home is ‘working time’ under the Working Time Directive. In Thue v The Norwegian Government, the EFTA Court have extended this principle. Thue’s (T), normal place of work was a rural police station, but he had also been a member of a special response unit. T claimed that when he had worked on three assignments for the unit then his travelling time to the places between his home and the places he was required to attend (i.e. not his normal place of work) was ‘working’ time. The two key issues were: was T under a duty to carry out tasks during his travels and was he ready for work and at the employer’s disposal? Here, the answer was ‘yes’, and the Court held that the time spent by T travelling, outside normal working hours to and/or from a location other than his normal place of work in order to carry out duties in another location, as required by his employer, was working time.

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