More than half (52%) of transport companies across Europe have had their offices inspected or audited for drivers’ hours compliance in the past year, according to a new study from TomTom Telematics.

The survey also reveals that 43% of companies have been the subject of roadside inspections between one and five times in the same period.

Meanwhile, 41% of transport companies say that they have cancelled between one and 10 jobs that they wanted to assign to drivers in the past 12 months due to not having visibility of their remaining drivers’ hours for the day.

“We spoke to over a thousand transport companies from across the EU and it’s clear that staying compliant with regulation regarding drivers’ hours can cause definite administrative hassle and impact productivity,” said Beverley Wise, director UK & Ireland at TomTom Telematics.

“Most of our respondents – over 60% - now use remote downloads to manage their tachograph data, which is unsurprising given how much simpler and less time-consuming that method is. A significant minority, however, still rely on manual downloading to stay compliant, which means their HCVs need to be off the road when it’s time to capture the required data. And, of those that manually download, 40% spend between 30 minutes and an hour per vehicle on retrieving tachograph data every month.”

Alongside tachograph regulation, the respondents also gave their opinion on fuel usage, productivity and safety concerns.

Almost half (49%) of transport companies now monitor mileage in order to tackle fuel wastage, while 38% invest in driver training for this purpose. When it comes to ensuring drivers are behaving safely on the roads, 42% are now running training programmes, while 33% monitor driver behaviour and 15% invest in 1-2-1 management sessions on the topic.

The research highlights data security fears too, with over half of respondents expressing concern regarding how GDPR will affect their handling of tachograph data.

“Clearly there are numerous areas of concern for the modern transport company,” said Wise. “At TomTom Telematics, we’re heavily invested in the transport sector and want to do everything we can to ensure its growth stays steady. That’s why we’ve used this survey as the basis for our latest research study, Four Pillars of Transport Success in 2018.”

The full report is available free on the TomTom Telematics website.   

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