Pass the remote
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Tachograph remote downloading came to prominence five years ago, but confusion remains over the different systems
Words: Karen Crispe A question we are increasingly being asked by operators is: “What is remote downloading?” The confusion arises because the term is now being used with several products that offer remote downloading, but by different means.
Basically, there are two types of remote downloading processes available at present: remote downloading with ‘remote authentication of a company card’ , currently only available from a VDO 1.3a digital tachograph; or via a number of external devices that can transmit data remotely, the data having irst been downloaded in the traditional way by inserting a company card in the tachograph.
The concept of remote downloading was introduced to the industry in 2006 when the major truck manufacturers got everyone excited about the prospect of a system that would allow vehicle and driver data to be transmitted to the transport company without the involvement of the driver and independently of the location of the truck.
But the development of such technologies was not as simple as irst thought. They also have to comply with the law, which states that “original data must be stored in its original format with its digital signature once it has been downloaded” , so they have taken time to develop. In fact, now the only two systems that can offer this solution are the VDO DLD and the soon to be released DigiPostV, and at present these are only compatible for use with the new VDO 1.3a digital tachograph.
But having established industry interest in remote downloading and its potential to relieve the workload on transferring, storing and securing vehicle and driver data, product developers set about solving the problem of legal compliance. They created alternative external remote downloading technology to overcome the issue of the digital signature rule, and which would work with all previous generations of digital tachographs, enabling all digital users to beneit.
And this is where we believe the confusion stems from: these new external remote downloading devices are different to the original concept presented in 2006, ie, the technology offered by the VDO DLD and DigiPostV on the VDO 1.3a tachograph.
To summarise, the key differences are: ● The VDO 1.3a tachograph features a remote download interface that enables the company card to be authenticated remotely using the VDO DLD or DigiPostV, ie controlled from the ofice computer.
Simply put, with this system it is not necessary to insert the company card in the slot of the tachograph; the authentication is done remotely, eliminating the need for any human intervention.
All downloaded data then has a digital signature, which is accepted by the authorities and can be processed, as well as automatically scheduled by the existing software tools and applications for analysis and archiving.
● External remote downloading devices – to comply with the digital signature rule the new remote downloading devices still require human intervention. Personnel still have to physically insert the company card into the digital tachograph to enable the data to be legally uploaded onto the external device when it is ‘plugged-into’ the VU. The data stored on the external device can then be remotely transmitted back to base using mobile technologies such as Bluetooth or GPRS/Wi-Fi connections.
In a digital tachograph context, the true deinition of remote downloading is the one we all originally bought into – technologies that can remotely take the data direct from the digital tachograph head without any human intervention – and this will still be the way of the future.
In the meantime, the development of external remote downloading devices has served to positively address operators’ immediate needs.
It is now up to the manufacturers, and us as suppliers of these types of products, to educate customers and ensure they are fully aware of all the ‘remote’ options. ■
● Karen Crispe is director of Tachodisc