The Analogue Tachograph is a calibrated instrument, specified in vehicles operated under EC drivers’ hours rules and registered up to May 2006, which is capable of recording time, speed, distance and the driver’s various activities onto a circular paper chart covered in wax. Each Tachograph Chart can record a period of twenty-four hours. There are 2 sections at the bottom of a printout that show events: One section is a broken line interrupted by!x and the card symbol and shows the last 5 events on your driver card. The other section is a broken line interrupted by!x and the vehicle symbol and shows the last 5 vehicle events.

There are many different symbols that are used on digital tachographs to depict different driver statuses and help drivers prevent accidental infringements. The key symbols that everyone who uses a digital tachograph should ensure they know are Drive, Available, Rest/Break and Other Work.

Digital tachographs have become an indispensable tool for the purposes of fleet management, now widely used throughout the transport sector. Tachographs are devices fitted to vehicles that record and store various different types of data – including journey distance, speed and driving time.

They can help to provide evidence that drivers abide by EU Drivers’ Hours regulations, as they are obliged to. But getting to grips with tachograph devices isn’t always easy. In this FAQ, we will aim to answer key questions on what tacho software is about.

Q: What do tachograph symbols mean?

A: There are many different tachograph symbols, and remembering the meaning of all of them is far from simple. However, there are certain key symbols which everyone who uses tachographs should ensure they get to know. These include:

Drive – this means, as is no doubt obvious, that the driver is active. It is automatically recorded as such on most tachographs and hence there is no need for drivers to deliberately select this option.

Available – this indicates the driver’s availability. Periods of availability include waiting time, for example taking a vehicle via ferry or waiting for loading and unloading.

Rest/break – another self-explanatory one, this symbol denotes both in-work breaks and daily/weekly rest periods.

Other work – indicates that the driver is logged in and doing work other than driving. This may include work for more than one employer, and even work outside the transport and fleet sector.

Q: What do digital tachograph systems consist of?

A: There are three main components to digital tachograph systems. These are the vehicle unit, smart cards and motion sensor. Of these, the vehicle unit (located in the driver’s cab) is the most important. Among other things it includes card slots, a printer and a display screen. The motion sensor, meanwhile, is situated on the gearbox and transmits data to the vehicle unit on the speed of the vehicle and the distance it travels. There are various types of smart card which can be used with the card slots, with drivers’ cards being the most relevant for our purposes here. Drivers must have a driver card when driving a vehicle equipped with a digital tachograph – this is an EU requirement. Where such a vehicle is used without a driver’s card, this will be recorded by the vehicle unit although it will not immobilise the vehicle.

Q: What procedures are drivers using digital tachographs required to follow in order to comply with tachograph regulations?

A: Drivers must confirm their starting location when prompted by the device and continually ensure that their digital tacho is set to the correct mode throughout the course of their shift. If, however, the tachograph is faulty or they’re unsure of how to use it, they must inform the relevant operator – who they must also permit to download data from their card. If they can’t use their card for whatever reason, drivers must provide written manual entries for these periods. It is mandatory that drivers are able to produce relevant records at the roadside. Furthermore, drivers must check that their tachograph doesn’t need recalibrating and make sure that they have adequate supplies of print roll in the vehicle.

Q: What happens when the vehicle is manned by more than one driver (‘multi-manning’)?

A: In the case of multi-manning, the crew member tasked with driving should insert their card into one slot and their co-worker into a second. Each crew member should use the mode change button for their slot. This should ensure that once the journey commences, the driver’s status automatically changes to ‘driving’ while their colleague is recorded as ‘available’. When the two crew members change places, they should swap their respective cards around.

Q: What duties do fleet operators have in relation to digital tachograph data?

A: Operators have various responsibilities when it comes to digital tacho data. They are obliged to download and store data from drivers’ cards and vehicle units, as well as keeping a watchful eye on drivers’ records and printouts. They must report instances of non-compliance with drivers’ hours regulations, incidents of excess speeding, missing activities and missing start/end locations. In addition, operators are responsible for training drivers to use tachograph systems, ensure proper use of drivers’ cards, and making sure that tachograph devices are properly calibrated and in full working order.

Tachogram has analysed over 70 million hours of working time data and we have noticed some patterns and common mistakes drivers make. Let us introduce the 5 most common mistakes we have identified.

Interrupting the resting period

According to regulations all of the resting periods should be uninterrupted. From the data we have analysed we have seen quite a lot of situations where drivers unintentionally interrupt their resting periods. Either by mistakenly setting tachograph to work state or driving for some very short periods of time.

The one thing we see drivers are missing is the fact that the resting period is also interrupted by actions they do on tachograph. For example:

• insertion and withdrawal of driver card
• entering shift start or end countries

Some common situations we have seen are related to interrupted a weekly rest. For example, the driver goes to the office on the previous evening to get the keys to the car, pick up documents of the vehicle. He inserts his driver card and starts driving only the next morning. In this case, the weekly rest has been interrupted by the card insertion and in this case the time till the next weekly rest has been reduced dramatically and can lead to a situation that the driver must take a full weekly rest instead of reduced rest.

Too many reduced daily rests taken

Counting to three shouldn’t be a problem for adults, right? Unfortunately, we see quite a lot of situations when drivers take more than 3 reduced daily rests within a work week and thus violate the required rest duration seriously.

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The reason why counting to three is troublesome is explained in the next couple of top mistakes – resting periods should be taken within 24 hour period and the problem with resting for precise periods of 9 or 11 hours. Read on!

Read on!

Resting periods should be taken within 24 hour period

When working alone all of the daily rests should be taken within 24 hour period after starting the work. We see a lot of situations when drivers start the daily rest so late that their planned resting time does not fit within the 24 hour period.

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For example, if the driver has been working for 15 hours and is doing a regular daily rest of 11 hours, it turns out that he’s actually doing a reduced daily rest due to the fact that only 9 hours fit within the 24 hour period after work has been started.

Resting for precise periods of 9 or 11 hours

Resting for precise 9 or 11 hours may lead to unexpected situations if you miss one minute of resting time. For example, as soon as you miss one minute of resting time from your planned 11-hour rest, the rest automatically converts to reduced daily rest and you are left with one reduced daily rest less for the rest of your work week. If you do not notice this fact early enough, you can unintentionally exceed the number of reduced daily rests within a week.

For example, if you miss one minute from your 11 hour rest on the first day of work week, do 3 more reduced daily rests of 9 hours, the 3rd reduced daily rest of 9 hours will lead to an infringement of missing 2 hours in your daily rest, which is a very serious violation or the rules.

Incorrect manual data entry

Whenever drivers insert a driver card into tachograph, they are asked what they did during the period the card was removed from the tachograph. Usually having a card removed from tachograph means that the driver has been resting during the period.

Unfortunately, we have seen quite a lot of situations when drivers have not entered any information or have entered information that they have been working for 9 or 24 or even more hours straight.

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This can lead to serious fines in roadside checks.