Continental has incorporated new tachograph functions in the form of scorecards to help give an overview of individual drivers or the entire fleet’s driving performance in the start of several new ideas Continental will be developing on compliance in the future.
Scorecards to Keep Fleet Managers Aware of Compliance on the Road
In a new move helping to reduce fleet violations, Continental’s VDO software for fleet and tachograph management will aid fleets and drivers to be more aware via technological advances. The new functionalities to Continental’s data management software, previously known as VDO TIS-web will enable fleet managers to better monitor violations recorded by tachographs in their fleets and to react before serious difficulties arise.
The scorecards will record several different violations based on tachograph data, compare them with the classification of violations laid down in EU Regulation 2016/403 and provide an overview of the fleet’s current compliance score.
The first function will be available to VDO Fleet Tachograph Management users (previously known as TIS-Web DMM 5.0) in the Advanced and Pro version from autumn 2021. It will provide fleet managers with a full overview of violations in their fleets. If fleet violations exceed a defined limit, fleet managers will automatically receive an alert when they log into the system, in line with the EU Regulation 2016/403, based on severity. As the EU Regulation varies depending on the country, or European threshold values, drivers can compare the scorecards depending on the country’s guidelines to avoids harsher sanctions that exceed the sum of the individual penalties.
How the Scorecard will Develop in the Coming Months
A later extension will also show trend indicators regarding the improvement or deterioration of the fleet’s scorecard. Then customers of the Pro version of VDO Fleet Tachograph Management will also receive reports at the individual driver and vehicle levels. These reports will enable them to quickly see the number and severity of violations that have accumulated.
Primarily, the software has been designed to offer a high degree of security and control to the responsible fleet staff – because instead of first noticing problems when sanctions are imposed, they can always see exactly where their fleet stands in this respect. Thereafter, they can then act as soon as their fleet performance deteriorates through violations, or as Timo Ketterer, Head of Service Product Management in the Commercial Vehicle Fleet Services, Continental business segment puts it, “Fleet managers are under great pressure to ensure compliance, we want to help them achieve this by giving them security. Those responsible can now see objectively if everything is in order or if they have to take action to remedy any issues.”
Ketterer also illustrated the complexity of the system, noting: “Firstly, there was this year’s introduction of the ERRU messaging system in the European countries that had not been involved with the system up until then. So, violations abroad are now reported to the domestic authorities all over Europe.” Noting, that compliance is being centralised across Europe, he added, “Secondly, the harmonisation of the various national interpretations at the European level is expected to come into force in 2024. In many cases, this will result in the critical threshold of a fleet’s compliance score being reached more quickly.”
Rounding off the technical logic behind the scorecard, Marcello Lucarelli, Head of Continental’s Commercial Vehicle Fleet Services added, “In the logistics and transportation industry, data from commercial vehicles has long been one of the most important building blocks for long-term success. This is why we at Continental believe that making this data available and processing it is one of our key tasks.”
Concluding by noting that the scorecards are the start of an untapped growth sector for commercial vehicle fleets, he added, “The data generated by our DTCO is particularly informative, trustworthy and tamper-proof, and this makes it a perfect foundation for a range of services with real added value – the new scorecards are just the beginning.”
