Digital Tachographs.

[Lasurazes]

To my mind, the new digital tachographs will be a vast improvement over the current, waxed-disc types.

For a start, the new system will give the driver full information about the hours driven in the current day, in the current week and in the current fortnight, at the press of a button.

Secondly, the tacho will give audible warnings if a driver is about to exceed those limits, 15 minutes in advance.

So essentially, the new digital tachographs will builld a Tach-Trak into the tacho, and all of this will be done automatically- without the need to operate two instruments.

Finally, the new tachographs will protect drivers from employers who ignore the 90-hour fortnightly driving rules on the grounds that “They cant do us for that. We dont have to carry a fortnight`s records”

And this will benefit drivers who obey the law, but have to compete with those who “run bent”.

Any thoughts?

Vince

[atkig11]

They have got to make them work first

To be honest Vince I can’t see them being introduced for a couple of years yet.

cheers
STEVE.

[krankee]

I had it from the proverbial ‘horses mouth’ a couple of weeks ago, and basically the design has been finalised and 2 of the 3 approval stages have been finalised. Once the third stage is completed, early next year, then the companies can begin production.

The implementation date set out in the Regulations (European Journal 1360/2002) requires them to be fitted to any vehicle first registered 5.8.2004 onwards. Whilst the manufacturers could (possibly) gear up to supply the demand for new vehicles, the systems are not yet in place in respect of training for the four groups of workers involved. Workshop->Driver->Company->Enforcement.

“Training for the Trainers” is expected to start next Spring.

Where this thing gets silly is that the dat 5.8.2004 is set in stone. It cannot be changed without being put back before the Council of Ministers. However, if they did that, with all the additional Countries joining the EC, the whole thing could get voted out.

So it appears that what has been thrashed out is that there will be a ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’. i.e. The regulation will remain but will be overlooked for about 12 months.

Will there be benefits? Firstly there will be a cost saving in analysing charts, which if I correctly remember seeing something recently, costs between 20 and 30 pence per chart. With the correct software infringements can readily be checked at a much lower per unit cost.

Secondly, if the vehicle is connected back to the Company via a data link, then Planners will be able to check both the number of Duty hours and Driving hours that have been used in the current week/fortnight, thereby being able to forecast more efficiently.

One thing that does not seem to have been fully considered is the requirement to have the Driver Card downloaded at periods of not more than 21 days. (Similar to handing in tacho charts.)

If you take the case of an Agency driver who, within that 21 day period, drives for companies A, B, C and D. Come day 21, the driver cannot be expected to get in his car and drive around the four companies having the card downloaded, particularly if company B was a ‘special’ job which involved significant travelling to collect the vehicle and ‘Nights Out’. Let’s then assume that the work for company C was based at a satellite yard where there are no Office staff employed.

Working for company A is fine. Working out of a major depot and at the end of every working day, the company download the Driver card. (21 days is a maximum limit - downloading every day complies with this requirement). Company D is another major depot, so no problems there, except, they will also be downloading the data in respect of company C and possibly company B, and this data may be commercially sensitive. The logical answer would be for company D to hold the data relating to companies C & B as archive. i.e. Only accessible with a Control (Enforcement) Card.

So. A Solution The Agency downloads the data. No, what if that driver in the 21 day period has worked for Agency A, B, C & D. The same arguments then apply.

And where would an O/D download their data? We didn’t even get that far.

There will be a large number of smaller companies that will not get geared up for the introduction of these cards and I envisage Transport Consultants will be getting in there fast to fill the void.

[atkig11]

I was hoping that the date was going to be put back.

That way I could get a new truck with the older type tacho still fitted.

As you say Ken what about the o/d or small haulier.

cheers
STEVE.

[davey_driver]

I have it from good authority (A Digital Tacho Manufacturer in France) that despite the introduction of the digital tacho, our product the Driver Hour Guard will still be required, so much so that we recently made an agreement with them appointing them as our French Distributors.

The Problem being that the smart card must hold 30 days data, however, when drivers change vehicles the data on the card cannot be used in the new tacho to keep the details of the drivers work for the past few days available for reading by the new tacho, therefore showing what limits have been reached. The data for reading is only held in the digital tacho, and must be kept in memory for 365 days, sounds simple, but bearing in mind the amount of data being recorded daily in a shift, and then taking into account users such as Asda that could have trucks running on shift work, they are struggling to maintain the required memory capacity.

They decided the best way forward was to eliminate some of the features, which included retaining the drivers actuall working recall functions. There is of course all the facts above by Krankee involving Agency workers, the smart card will require downloading at regular intervals to free up memory, so I would’nt be too confident on seeing things like the Hour Guard or Tach Trak being built into the Digital Tachos, along with another important factor Patents on both items which would be breached if they were built in without prior agreement.