Digital tachographs - Stop the clock!
30 September 2003

A 12-month delay to the introduction of the digital tachograph is now essential, the Freight Transport Association has told EU Transport Commissioner Loyola De Palacio, as neither the on-board unit, nor the driver’s card, seem likely to be available on time to meet the implementation timetable laid down in the regulations.

At an informal meeting of experts held in Brussels on 12 September it was agreed that the digital tachograph implementation timetable will be impossible both in practical terms, as the units will not be available on time, and in operational terms, as training programmes for drivers cannot to be implemented in time either. The meeting was attended by representatives of 5 member states, card, tachograph and vehicle manufacturers and members of the EU Commission.

FTA Chief Executive, Richard Turner, said, ‘The outcome of this meeting, informal or otherwise, reinforces FTA’s case and confirms our contention that the August 2004 deadline is now totally unrealistic. The Commission must make a clear and unequivocal statement on these matters so that businesses can plan ahead with confidence.

‘The principal cost imposed on the road transport sector is not the on-board vehicle equipment, which should cost less than the current analogue mechanism, but the training of drivers, technicians, managers and enforcement teams throughout the Member States. This will be compounded during the initial period particularly as they will have to cope with a mixture of both paper discs and digital records.

‘I have also written to the Department for Transport to ask for their full support to achieve an early decision on this delay.’

FTA believes that it would be totally impractical and inappropriate to adopt the suggestion made at the meeting that there should be some form of “gentlemen’s agreement” between member states simply not to enforce this regulation for 12 months until August 2005.

Turner continued, ‘Industry, operators and drivers cannot be expected to work in this way.  This is the biggest and most costly change industry has faced for 20 years and the technology is already recognised as being out of date and of questionable benefit therefore it is imperative that confusion and unnecessary costs are avoided.’