Dutch haulage association raises concerns over costs of EU mandatory tachograph update
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Dutch haulage association Transport Logistics Netherlands (TLN) has said it opposes the European Commission's intention to give the new Smart tacho 2 a mandatory update.
In the opinion of TLN, the new Smart tacho automatically records border crossings even without the OSNMA authentication (part of the delayed introduction of EU’s new Galileo service, whose task will be to authenticate the positions of truck drivers recorded by via tachograph).
TLN states that positions are simply recorded when entering the country codes at the start and end of the daily work period and when crossing the border.
“It is therefore not about the registration itself, but about its authentication. This authentication is also not present in the Smart tacho 1. The current Smart tacho 1 registers the position of the vehicle every three hours of accumulated driving time and when entering the country codes at the start and end of the daily work period and when crossing the border. In the Smart tacho 2, the automatic registration of border passages is added,” says TLN.
The haulage association adds:
“The security helps to prevent jamming (the manipulation of the satellite signal). However, there are no indications that this happens much or that this would no longer be possible if authentication is in place. The additional benefits of OSNMA are therefore minimal. It is also difficult for enforcers to check whether a tachograph has received the update or not.”
Besides the above, TLN is concerned about the costs of an update.
The association has estimated the extra costs for the Netherlands alone at approximately 10.5 million euros. This is in addition to the already considerable costs for retrofitting tachographs.
“The additional costs for the update regard the workshop time needed to perform the update during the mandatory periodic calibration of the tachograph, the purchase of additional equipment, training of the technicians to perform the update for all brands of tachographs, and necessary adjustments to vehicles,” writes TLN.
TLN thus concludes that the costs do not outweigh the benefits here, and that the industry should not be saddled with these additional costs due to the late delivery of the OSNMA system.