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EU advisors push for wider smart-card mho retrofit
Page 4
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by Chris Tindall Concerns are growing that the European Parliament may go ahead with an EU advisory committee's proposals to fit digital smart-card tachographs to all trucks within three years of their introduction.
The EU's Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism Committee (RETT) approved proposals for the retrospective fitting of smart-card tachos late last year, which will affect all vehicles in the 36 months after smart-card tachograph legislation comes into effect in 2004.
Current legislation states that only vehicles over 12 tonnes which were registered after January 1996 will need to retrofit when their current tachographs fall. If the European Parliament agrees with RM's proposals the industry will be faced with replacing all tachos within three years. But confusion currently surrounds the proposals.
"All I want to know is what's going on," says Tachodisc managing director Philip Jordan. "As far as we are concerned, the actual legislation states that there's to be a retrofit.
"[But] I don't think manufacturers can physically make five million tachos in that time and, if this happens, we are out of business immediately."
However, managing director of tacho specialist Siemens VDO, Nick Pendell, thinks there is too little time left before the Introduction of smart-card tachos to change the legislation: "I can't see it at this late stage, after all the trouble they have gone through to get this legislation agreed."
And Stefan Foster, managing director of Tachotraining (which Is Involved In rolling out the new technology) warns that the Industry is not prepared for a smart-card tacho introduction, adding that retrofitting in a short space of time would serve only to make matters worse. "There's a curious situation at the moment where there's no product and an Inconsistent information flow. There's a pile of analogue data and a pile of digital data, and if they retrofit within a certain amount of time, what will happen to it all? There will be a grey area."
Foster says retrofitting would have to take into account "a good 300,000 vehicles in the UK," and he believes smart-card manufacturers have enough to cope with. Scottish regional pol icy manager for the freight Transport Association Joan Williams agrees that time Is running out, but warns that the legislation could change in the future. "At this moment in time It's RETT's view," she says. "[However] Parliament normally accepts these views as they are advisers. But that doesn't mean it will happen in this case; we really have to keep an eye on it."