Doubts grow over digital tacho plan
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• The European Commission's plan to replace the existing tachograph with a smart-cardbased digital recording system in new vehicles from July 2001 is coming under increasing scrutiny as major questions over its final specification and security remain unanswered.
The introduction of the socalled digital tachograph has already been put back a year and some industry experts prestet that it could take even longer. "There are so many issues around it that it's still a complete dog's dinner," says Nick Bendel!, general manager of VDO Kienzle UK (formerly Lucas Kienzle) which is set to be one of the major suppliers of this equipment.
"It's supposed to be brought in 21 months after the final technical specification is agreed," Bendel) explains. But that final specification is no nearer and many industry observers are concerned that digital tachos as proposed may not even be as tamper-proof as the chartbased tachos they are designed to replace (see tint box, right).
A year ago the Department of Transport commissioned the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory to look at tachograph security. It delivered a report suggesting that digital tachographs could actually make life easier for cowboy hauliers (CM30 April-6 May1998).
The report warned that the smart cards used to record a driver's hours could be vulnerable to electronic tampering, adding that black-market cards could enable a crooked driver to replace an illegal history with a "clean" record.
Data storage
Among the issues to be resolved before 2001 is who will issue smart cards to drivers—and who will actually hold the records taken from the vehicle's data storage unit or dryer cards.
Suggestions that an unscrupulous operator could easily manipulate data held on an office computer have prompted enforcement officials to look at data encryption, or coding. But legitimate operators who currently use tacho charts to generate management data would clearly want to have the same access to this information with any new system. The EC has left it up to individual states to decide how data should be downloaded and stored. Among the options being floated for the UK are that specially appointed bureaus might hold digital records. Atternatively the VI could hold information on a central data base.
In March this year the Department of Transport responded to a request from the EC to spell out its concerns over the enforceability of drivers' hours rules using digital tachographs. The DOT canvassed the opinions of a number of enforcement agencies; notjust those within the UK.
Printed records
While reinforcing its desire to see an improved drivers' hours enforcement system, the DOT highlighted a number of issues, including the lack of any requirement to have, or maintain, any printed records.
With the current tachograph, any attempt to remove or destroy a chart is relatively easy to spot.
But with the proposed digital tacho it would theoretically be possible for a driver to drive without his smart card inserted, and for that journey to be recorded on his card as rest. The in-cab recorder would log the distance driven—but it couldn't say who was behind the wheel.
A rogue driver stopped by the roadside could simply claim he'd lost his card, and it would be difficult to cross-check against his movements, especially as the data recorder has no facility for entering specific start and finish points.
Instead of writing down an actual location, such as "Solihull'', as on the current chart, on the digital tachograph it's proposed that a driver would key in a broad geographic region, like "UK—Midlands".
Given those flaws, the DOT wants the system to include a facility which would require the driver to enter his own details in the in-cab unit, without a card being inserted. It would also like the system to record more specific start and finish points.
There's also the matter of enforcement. Police and VI examiners must be able to read a driver's card and the in-cab unit at the roadside to detect any infringements. Despite its oldfashioned technology the current tacho chart already allows this.
The proposed digital system has also been criticised for not being able to hold vehicle speed information for more than 24 hours, making it harder to track down habitual speeders.
The EC will soon be meeting With officials from all concerned members states to hammer out these and other issues before time runs out. According to insiders the EC is listening. That's just as well, because if the digital tachograph is introduced and then goes pear-shaped it will be a much bigger problem for the industry than the tacho difficulties that we know of today