1This Convention shall apply to every contract for the carriage of passengers and, where appropriate, of their luggage in vehicles by road when the contract provides that the carriage shall take place in the territory of more than one State and that the place of departure or the place of destination, or both these places, shall be situated on the territory of a Contracting State, irrespective of the place of residence and the nationality of the Parties.
2For the purposes of this Convention:
(a)" carrier " means any person who in the course of trade or business, but acting other than as an operator of a taxi service or of a service hiring out vehicles with drivers, undertakes under an individual or collective contract of carriage to carry one or more persons and, where appropriate, their luggage, whether or not he performs the carriage himself;
(b)" passenger " means any person who, in the performance of a contract of carriage made by him or on his behalf, is carried either for reward or gratuitously by a carrier ;
(c)" vehicle " means any motor vehicle used in the performance of a contract of carriage and intended for the carriage of persons ; a trailer shall be deemed to form part of the vehicle.
3This Convention shall also apply where the carrier is a State or other public body.
4The Contracting States undertake not to vary any of the provisions of this Convention by special agreements between two or more of them, except to make it inapplicable to their frontier traffic.
Where carriage by road is interrupted and another mode of transport is used, this Convention shall nevertheless apply to the portions of carriage which are performed by road, even if they are not international within the meaning of article 1, provided that they are not ancillary to the other mode of transport.
Where the vehicle itself is carried over part of the journey by another mode of transport, this Convention shall apply to loss or damage caused by an incident connected with the carriage by the vehicle and which occurs either while the passenger is inside the vehicle or is entering or alighting from the vehicle, or in connection with the fact that luggage is on or in the vehicle or is being loaded or unloaded.