Date published: 01.09.08 - not release date

Using data from the Digital Tachograph to improve operational performance

Fleet operators can achieve significant business benefits by taking advantage of the operational data that is now available from digital tachographs. Although primarily intended to meet EU legislative requirements for road safety, digital tachographs can also be used to provide useful information to help operators run their fleet operations more efficiently.

Details of the vehicles operation are stored in the tachograph and the driver’s card which must be inserted at all times whenever the vehicle is in use. Additional cards are issued for use by the workshop, the vehicle operator or fleet manager and the police and other officials who are involved in enforcement.

Accessories provided by the tachograph manufactures include hand held download units and back-office software for analysis and reports as well as archiving the data to meet legislative requirements. A unique feature of the Actia D Box download unit is the provision of a display and facilities allowing the user to choose download options, to perform either a full download or a partial download.

If for example, the manager should suspect speeding then he can configure the unit to select ‘over speed’. As a tool the D Box can be used either to communicate with the vehicles or to download drivers’ hours – and this can be carried out remotely if necessary.

For instance there may be a case where the fleet is split between multiple sites with the administration and fleet manager based in a central headquarters site. The manager rarely sees most of the fleet and consequently will find it difficult to make arrangements to physically download the data from the vehicle unit.

The drivers aren't able to carry out this task without access to the management card. For remote downloading the Actia D box can be used to download the tachograph data and then relay this to the central server via a telephone modem.

A GPRS version is also under development to enable mobile communications.

Other developments include the introduction of a D-Box control function which allows fleet managers to check the status of agency and temporary drivers before taken them on.

The key benefit of this is to protect the fleet operator from being exposed to the risk of prosecution by inadvertently hiring drivers who have not rested sufficiently or are who are close to their maximum driving hours and will be potentially in contravention during the contracted working period.

Instead of reading the vehicle unit the Actia D Box Control facility will read and display specific information from the driver’s card. As a management tool this enables the operations staff to check the drivers’ recent driving record and ensure he is within scope to take on a new assignment.

For more info on Actia products go to http://www.actia.co.uk


About Actia
Actia UK is a division of Actia SA, a worldwide group of companies specialising in vehicle electronics and diagnostics. The groups competencies cover several complimentary automotive business areas including bus and coach power management, instrumentation, vehicle diagnostics, bus CCTV, tachographs and audio video products.
Contact details:

Mike Ottewell
MJO Associates for Actia (UK)
Tel: 01538 361217
E-mail: mjo.associates@tiscali.co.uk

Robin Edwards
Actia (UK)
Tel:- 01686 611150
E-mail: redwards@actia.co.uk
Fax:- 01686 621068