4 ) I The tachograph of the 21st century will do
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much more than check your hours. But while the EC dithers, are the extra tasks it will do worth the expense?
• Remember the days before tachographs? Until the eighties, the technology of recording drivers' hours was strictly at the pencil and paper stage.
Then came the "spy in the cab". It was foisted on the us by EC legislation but, hauliers were assured, would be a trouble-free, fiddle-proof aid to the enforcement of the hours' rules. Tacho heads would be reliable and would cost only £60 to replace, said the manufacturers.
Predictably things weren't quite that straightforward, but now there's talk of a tacho to take us into the 21st century: a computerised, electronic
all-singing, all-dancing box of tricks that will do everything a mechanical tacho will do, and much more besides.
The Dutch and the French seem particularly keen to scrap the tacho, with its wire-on-wax recording mechanism and piles of cards which nobody ever looks at, in favour of electronic systems as the EC standard for recording drivers hours.
Most prominent among electronic alternatives to the tachograph is the Logiq system, developed by Dutch electronics group Simac, with Des help. Its debut was at the IRTE show and it is being marketed through the Leyland Daf network.
Electronic recording systems are expected to make a major impact on the transport industry over the next two or three years. They offer operators — particularly fleet operators — a range of management aids which start where conventional tachos leave off and can monitor just about everything which is happening to the truck.
They also offer a tracking capability which can continuously transmit a vehicle's position to its base from anywhere in Europe.
On the Logiq system information is stored on "smart cards", which are said to be a durable advance on the disks used in most computers: "You can drop it into a cup of tea, put it into the microwave, and it will still work perfectly," says Ian Jones, managing director of Leyland Daf On-Board Systems.
He reckons Logiq could be recognised by the EC as an alternative to the tacho by the start of 1994, although some pundits would see that date as strongly optimistic.
Meanwhile Logiq offers plenty of other services, such as an in-cab fax and tracking system. — it can bring the office computer into trucks, complete with fax and printer, if required. It would fit into the fascia where the tacho head sits now, with little difficulty. Costs start at just over £1,000.
TRADITIONAL
Mannesmann Kienzle, fresh from launching its slim-line 1319 (CM 9-15 Jan) in IIanover last month, is sceptical about any early replacement of traditional tachos. Having invested heavily in automated production of tachos, the company points out that modern heads are much advanced than they were a few years ago.
The tachograph, contrary to what some supporters of electronics systems would have you believe, is not an antique," says a spokesman. Not only is it relatively cheap, he says, but drivers have a lot of confidence in the present system because the chart is tangible evidence of what they have been doing that day, Kienzle says that while numbers can be flashed up on the screen to tell the driver what he's been doing, dashboard designers are already rethinking the move towards such displays. It's like the face of a watch. Numbers were popular, but with a display of numbers you have to think; with the long and short hands you get an instant reading.
Kienzle, which also launched an electronic recording system at Hanover, supports a cautious approach to change, and this sums up the stance of the German and UK governments.
"Everyone is in complete agreement that electronics is the way forward. The dispute is about exactly how you do it and how fast," says Veeder-Root's Frank Clish, a UK member of the EC's tacho committee.
The EC has been considering electronics since 1988 but has made little progress. At the latest meeting, held last month, the Irish, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek delegations all voted with their feet and stayed away. Anyone who doesn't turn up is assumed to have voted against the electronic option.
One likely reason for this conservative attitude is that relative newcomers such as Spain have only just finished implementing the tacho requirements for their own domestic haulage, while Greece has still to complete the process.
These countries are unlikely to welcome another unpopular change. "The EC is in a state of turmoil. It doesn't know what to do," says Clish.
The whole process is becoming like one of Frankie Howerd's interminable prologues, says Paul Woolcock, the Vehicle Inspectorate's technical representative to the EC on tachographs. As yet he says, the EC is nowhere near agreeing a standard, as it has with the conventional tacho.
There are some serious issues at stake for enforcers, not least the security of electronic devices and how they are to be introduced. in Britain, traffic examiners have spent the past 10 years getting to know many of the dodges associated with mechanical devises: An experienced eye can detect all sorts of fiddles," says Woolcock. From the hauliers' point of view all the potential advantages have to be offset against the extra cost.
Owen Thomas of the Freight Transport Association says that while some fleets are keen to get involved with the new electronics, many smaller operators "would not derive benefits from the management material on offer".
DIFFERING
"One hears all sorts of differing views on cost," he says. "A lot depends on what specification the EC eventually comes up with and how manufacturers are able to respond. I don't think anyone is giving any guarantees about anything at present."
The best advice is, if you want to invest in advanced electronic recording equipment to benefit fleet management or communications, go ahead.
But it is likely to be running alongside your conventional tachograph for some time to come.
0 by Jack Semple