Log books are old hat, it's tachos from Jan 1
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On that date their use is compulsory, but how many operators have still not made the change? The great majority, suggests David Wilcox. Why is this? He reports that their correct use brings significant advantages
CULMINATION of 14 years
planning, bureaucracy and rangling comes in a couple of /onths time when tachographs .(3/ well and truly with us. On muary 1, 1982, tachographs /ust not only be installed and ilibrated but actually used on lost commercial vehicles over 5 tonnes gross.
It was the 1968 Transport Act at first mentioned the installaan of "equipment for recording formation as to the use of ahicle . . " EEC regulations ere more specific, mentioning chographs by name and were iforced in the UK by the Pasanger and Goods Vehicle tecording Equipment) Requiems 1979.
The phasing-in period for fit1g and calibrating runs out on ecember 31 this year and talos must be in use from the axt day onwards. While there has been nothing to stop forward-looking operators using the tachographs before this, it is impossible to say how many have done so. In my estimation it is a fairly low proportion and the majority of operators are still using their log books.
One of the companies that made the transition quite a long time ago was Bartrums of Diss, Norfolk. This company is a general haulier with a trunking fleet of 66 tractive units and 110 trailers plus a small distribution fleet of 20 rigid boxvans, which was established in 1929.
It is a typical family-owned haulage business, trunking all types of loads to a variety of des
tinations in the UK. Bulk flour and malt are among the regular loads, while the distribution fleet delivers to retail outlets throughout East Anglia and takes market produce to London.
The managing director, Philip Bartrum, explained that the company's first encounter with tachographs was way back in 1969 when it bought some Votvo F86 units fitted with seven-day Kienzle tachographs. "We more or less disregarded them and never put a chart in as far as I can remember," said Philip.
It was not until 1974/5 that the subject of tachographs next cropped up. The Bartrums drivers were on a fairly typical productivity bonus scheme which the management was not too happy about, and the tacho
graph seemed to offer potenti as a replacement.
Despite a joint driver/manag ment approach by Lucas Kienzl Bartrums did not go over to t chos because the drive persuaded the company th productivity would suffer if tl existing bonus scheme we discontinued. Bartrums ma agement relucantly accept( this argument and did not pi. sue the point.
But by early 1977 growing di satisfaction with the born scheme prompted a chang Said Philip Bartrum: "As wi many other similar systems, o bonus scheme was managii the drivers; it wasn't the ma agement." Bartrum knew th the tachograph was not far ( by now, and so took the °pp( tunity to make the transition ai get rid of the bonus scheme the same time.
The proposal that Bartrur came up with was to scrap t productivity bonus altogeth and offer a basic salary instea incorporated with the introdt tion of the tacho. In addition this, Bartrums wanted strict a herence to all speed limits al s imposing a limit of its own iOmph on motorways.
kt first Bartrums offered to run h tachos alongside the existbonus/log book system and ) volunteers from each of the ripany's three depots started ng the tachographs in the :ing of 1977. Three months it was thrown open to all J by the September 60 per It of the drivers had chosen to 3 the tachographs.
fhe changeover did not go en)Iy unopposed and the local ion officials visited Bartrums, t the company considered it d reached a point of no return d dug its heels in. The opposin dissolved and the changeer to 100 per cent tachograph age was achieved in late 77/early 1978.
Thilip Bartrum told me that he d not had to make any special yments to drivers to accept tacho. "Our guaranteed ary is based on the previous basic plus the average amount of bonus that used to be earned, so our total wage bill is more or less the same."
Despite that part of the tacho deal which insisted on keeping to 50mph on motorways and adhering closely to all other limits, productivity dropped only very slightly. This has been more than offset by the savings which have been achieved. These have come in several areas.
The first saving that Bartrums noticed was a drop in fuel consumption. The tractive units are mainly Volvo — F7, F10, F86 and F88 — plus 13 Mercedes-Benz 1626 units and a lone Scania III. Philip estimated that on average they have shown a 10 per cent improvement in fuel economy.
The F7 units are now up to a very creditable 31 lit/100km (9mpg) on average, pulling all types of trailers. Similarly, the F1Os are now recording 36 lit/100km (7.9mpg) instead of 40 lit/100km (7mpg).
With a fleet of 66 units each averaging 60,000 miles a year, this amounts to a fuel saving worth a staggering £65,000 a year. The 20 distribution vehicles. which are mostly 12 to 16-ton gvw Bedford TK and Dodge 100Series boxvans, were also fitted with tachos at the same time. The improvement in their fuel consumption was not so marked — about 5 per cent, reckoned Philip Bartrum. "You can't expect to get the same benefits with local distribution vehicles as you do with trunkers when you fit tachos. Distribution vehicles are more manageable anyway because their movements are more or less predetermined and they don't reach the speed that trunkers do."
Even so, the fuel on the 20 distribution vehicles which cover 30,000+ miles a year works out to a £2,500 reduction in the annual fuel bill.
Philip Bartrum recalled that the next benefit he noticed after fitting the tachos and imposing the 50mph limit was a substantial improvement in tyre life. The tyres on the tractive units now last around 30 per cent longer, while the improvement in the distribution fleet tyre life is roughly half this.
Continued Philip: "The last saving that became apparent was maintenance, and this took quite a long time to show up. But when it came it was quite dramatic. It was in September 1978 and it was just like turning off a tap; suddenly the maintenance needed just dropped."
Brake lining wear and general engine life have been the two most noticeable areas of im provement but Philip said th. whole range of maintenanc. was reduced.
There was also an astonishin! reduction in the amount of acci dent damage that the vehicle sustained. This fell to just 20 pe cent of its previous level.
In the case of all these saving that Bartrums has achieved, th. introduction of the 50mph limi has undoubtedly played its pan But without the tachograph tb. limit would have been hard ti enforce. Philip Bartrum felt sur that had he gone over to tachc graphs without imposing th. 50mph limit, the savings woull still have been substantial an easily outweigh the costs of hay ing the tachographs fitted aril calibrated.
Retrospective fitting and cali brating costs around £230, bu the vast majority of vehicle which are eligible for tacho have of course come read equipped for the last few years.
Lucas Kienzle has the larges share of the original equipmer market in this country and a Bartrums' Volvo units plus mos of the Bedford and Dodge rigid were supplied with Luca Kienzle tachographs. Oc casionally, a rigid may b bought from stock and will hay a Smith or Veeder Root tech! fitted, in which case Bartrum will operate it until the instru ment develops a fault, when i will be replaced with a Luca Kienzle model.
How many tachos do develo! faults? Philip Bartrum: "Befor we went over to tachos we hear! sorts of stories about them eking and so on. We're found m to be more reliable than normal speedos."
n his experience, a fair ,portion of failures stem from oorly routed drive cable that )ent through angles that are tight. "We also used to have roblem on a particular type of iicle with the seal at the gear( and of the cable. This seal !d to fail and the gearbox oil ,d to work its way up the drive le and fill the actual tacho id. We got round this by fitan extra seal and now it isn't 'oblem."
ecause Bartrums went over tachos relatively early on, St of the company's vehicles 'e the two-man manual Lucas nzle tachos, but the newer icles have the automatic ver1 so that drivers do not have to remember to switch to the drive mode when moving off. All the Bartrums drivers had adapted to tachographs well and most were pleased to say goodbye to the logbooks.
The newest type of tachograph recently launched by Lu cas Kienzle is the electronic ver sion where the drive cable is replaced by an electrical cable and an electronic sensor unit takes the place of the normal geared drive. This electronic tachograph has quickly found favour with coach operators where the long run from the mid or rear-mounted engine/gearbox causes problems with a conventional drive cable. Bartrums will be looking at electronic tachos for its next batch of vehicles. Tachograph manufacturers have rightly pointed out there is an enormous amount of information that can be derived from a tachograph chart.
While accepting this, Bartrums has played down this side and finds the very existence and potential of the tachograph has brought about the improvements without detailed analysis.
Bartrums' traffic staff simply read the week's tacho charts on a simple hand-held analyser.
This takes a couple of minutes for the whole week's charts for a driver, concentrating mainly on checking that the eight hours total driving and four hours continuous driving rules are not broken.
This takes care of the routine analysis of the charts and Bartrums only goes into greater detail if something shows up in some other way such as high fuel consumption, a bad accident record, poor productivity or too much maintenance. Then, Bartrums will use a magnifyer to study the chart more closely and look at speeds, driving styles, waiting time, etc.
Philip Bartrum said he personally sees no need to resort to the services of a bureau offering computerised chart reading. There are a number of these bureau services on the market, usually charging between 15p and 30p per chart analysed, de pending on the degree of deta required. "The day to day reac ing of the charts just doesn warrant it, but we could alway send a chart off if we had a part cular problem," commente Philip.
The profusion of elaborat tachograph chart storag systems that have followed i the wake of the tachographs ha similarly been resisted.
Instead, they use some homE made dowelling stands OVE which they thread the chart; Simple, but efficient.
Bartrums has shown its fait in tachographs in other ways. I 1978 the company became a official tachograph fitting an calibration centre and is the LL cas Kienzle agent for the Dis area. Philip Bartrum said h didn't think the tacho statio would stand on its own but was useful as part of the corr pany's commercial repair bus ness. This goes under the nam of Trumbar (the syllables of Bai trum reversed).
As if to underline its enthL siasm for tachographs, Bartrum has also fitted them in the firm' vans, which legally do not rE quire them. Philip Bartrum sai that he would even put one i his car, but it was a rather awl ward installation!
He concluded: "It's not just case of accepting tachograph because they're compulson, We're 100 per cent pro-tachc graph to the extent that I don know what we would do withot. them."