At the beginning of this year, a local business owner approached Mapon for a consultation on digital tachograph rule compliance matters and how telematics solutions could help his business in the future. The situation was this – he at that moment was dealing with a court case threatening to revoke his license due to tachograph rule violations. While this is a common occurrence, it’s also easily avoidable. From reminders and basic tachograph data downloads to smart analysis tools that will do the thinking for you, introducing telematics solutions in your fleet might be the answer you’re looking for. 

There are several regulations issued at the EU level and even additional ones on the national level that concern tachograph follow-up matters, the most widely-known being Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 and now – the Mobility package. And while these laws, amendments and explanations are widely available, it’s almost impossible to follow-up with every detail, if you choose to do it yourself. In this article we’ll introduce you to Mapon solutions that can help manage your fleet’s tachograph data and make sure you always stay in line with EU rules and regulations.

The most essential rule for everyone to remember is the 28-day and 90-day deadline for digital tachograph data download. Turns out, it’s not always that simple and there are benefits from doing it more often. The Mapon digital tachograph data remote download solution allows you to set up automatic data collection from both driver and vehicle cards. As soon as the driver inserts the card in the tachograph, our system automatically checks whether a download needs to be done and starts it, if necessary.

Telematics devices can follow your fleet’s journey in real-time. To avoid human error, Mapon offers to set up alerts that will notify you and the respective driver about an upcoming rest time, making sure he won’t miss or ignore it. What’s more, if you combine this feature with our fleet route planning solution, the pre-planned routes allow you to integrate rest times and even choose a place for the rest stop.

While the above mentioned solutions will give you a good start, imagine a situation where you’re offered a simple mobile phone or a smartphone, would you really settle for the prior? Telematics solutions, combined with such data analysis tools as Tachogram, will ensure full access and easy management over all your company’s tachograph data. 

Tachogram is developed according to all the current EU rules and regulations, including the recent Mobility package changes. Therefore, you can be sure that as soon as the relevant data is uploaded, Tachogram will process it accordingly and your managers will be able to follow-up with everything much faster and easier. Furthermore, because of Mapon fleet API integrations, all of this information can be accessed from the Mapon platform, saving you time and energy on gathering information from different platforms.

When it comes to following driving times, who better to do it than the drivers themselves? Tachogram offers easy account set-up for your crew. This way your drivers can stay on top of their driving and rest times, schedules and even violations by accessing the platform via web or using a mobile app which is available for both Android and iOS devices.

Tachogram also provides a multitude of reports capable of assisting you with internal EU law enforcement as well as effective management of your drivers schedules, work hours, wages and more. The Driver risk rating report gathers information on violations registered by the tool. Each infringement is rated and will make it easy for you to notice the drivers in your fleet that show a tendency of non-compliance with the driving and rest time rules.

It’s clear that the tachograph data analysis tool is able to register each driver’s infringements, but a slap on the wrist won’t do much, if the person doesn’t know what they did wrong. With Tachogram, the drivers are able to see their infringements and even the exact legal act, where the respective rule is stated. With the aim of assisting businesses in educating their drivers, we’ve also created printable forms. The added benefit lies in the possibility for your managers to have a one-on-one with the drivers, explain the issues and have them sign the form acknowledging their willingness to refrain from similar infractions in the future. If the rating is continuously high, you can always consider additional training for the team.

To sum up, a lot of Mapon clients are currently using telematics-based tools to ensure that their teams are following EU’s driving and rest time rules. Our solutions give you the possibility to:

• Schedule regular remote tachograph data download, thus making sure you’re always following Regulation (EU) No 581/2010;
• Keep track of employee driving times with the help of live data and alerts;
• Plan routes and rest stops along the way, according to tachograph legislations;
• Overview already analysed tachograph data on a regular basis to manage your risks;
• Provide data to drivers via mobile applications.

If your team can benefit from tools that can help avoid potential legal issues such as fines and even court cases due to EU rule infringement, don’t hesitate to contact us.