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by Keith Vincent 'Any real advance must get away from scratching wax off a paper disc with metal stylii. Even in 1983 this is primitive; in 10 years' time it will seem pre-historic.'
Streamlining the tachograph
THE TECHNICAL pages of CM regularly describe advances in vehicle instrument systems arising from the ubiquitous micro-chip.
Yet not in the tachograph. Despite the increasing use of electronics in feeding information to the back of the instrument, the recording process will continue to be the technological equivalent of the old 78rpm gramophone record.
This is not because tachograph manufacturers have remained in the horse-andbuggy era. On the contrary, they have all been spending much time and money in development. But for the time being these developments must remain in the laboratory, for a very good commercial reason. Tachographs based on them could not be legally used within the EEC.
Regulation 1463/70 contains a specification with which tachographs must comply if they are to receive type approval. This specification is extremely detailed, and takes up more than half the pages of the Regulation.
Because the specification is part of the Regulation, it could normally be modified only through the usual slow EEC legislative progress — a formal proposal from the Commission, advice from the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee, and adoption by the unanimous vote of all ten Ministers in the Council.
Almost as soon as the Regulation was adopted in 1970 the Commission foresaw that this cumbersome procedure would represent a brake on technical progress. They therefore proposed the establishment of a "Committee for the adaptation of this Regulation to technical progress." This consists of civil servants from the member countries, and is chaired by an official of the Commission's Transport Directorate-General.
The initiative for proposing changes to the specification still rests with the Commission, but the slow-moving EEC legislative procedure can be by-passed in certain circumstances. If the technical committee agrees with the Commission's proposal the measures may be adopted straight away, without reference to the Council of Ministers.
If the committee does not agree, there is provision for the question to go to the Council, and even for the Commission to act on its own if the Council delays. But clearly if the civil servants on the technical committee do not agree with the Commission's proposals, their Ministers are not likely to find them any more acceptable.
All this is inevitably theoretical, because although the amendment to Regulation 1463/70 establishing the Committee was adopted in 1973, its first meeting did not take place until almost ten years later, in January of this year.
Moreover, it seems that even this belated meeting did not stem from pressure by either the tachograph manufacturers or the Governments. Both groups seem to have been happy to leave things as they are. The initiative appears to have come from the Commission, as a parallel move to the revision of the hours Regulation No 543/69 which the tachograph is designed to enforce.
Inevitably, the Committee's first meeting did not get very far, though apparently there was general agreement on the need to move forward. The Commission said that it intended to consult the tachograph manufacturers on their wishes, and suggested that each country should consult representatives of its own road transport industry to find out what developments they would like to see.
Unfortunately this sensible scheme has run into an unexpected difficulty. The funds available to the Commission to pay the expenses of those it invites to meetings have been frozen until the row with the European Parliament about the Community budget is resolved. So the next meeting of the Committee is unlikely to take place before the autumn, instead of this month as originally planned (consultation on the review of the hours Regulation is apparently held up for the same reason).
In practice, this delay may not matter much. The tachograph manufacturers have so much at stake that they will happily pay their own travel expenses to Brussels to lobby the Commission. And the DTp has only just got around to asking operators' associations about the changes they want to see. No quick replies can be expected on such a complicated and controversial topic. Probably little delay will have been caused by the financial crisis.
The Committee is supposed to be a purely technical body, unconcerned with political considerations. But in practice this cloistered attitude is unlikely to survive any proposed change which would benefit any one individual country's tachograph industry as against another's. So any changes resulting from the Committee's quick procedure seem likely to be relatively minor unless all the secret development work now going on in Dundee, Cricklewood, Villingen and Paris is on identical lines, which seems highly unlikely.
Nevertheless, one change does seem to stand a good chance of relatively quick adoption. Splitting the display part of the tachograph from th actual recording seems to hay' attracted widespread support. This would have two benefits. The designers would more easily be able to provide their streamlined dashboards. MorE important, the actual speed an other displays could be made both more sophisticated and more comprehensive than the, are now.
But any real advance must surely get away from recordim information by scratching wax off a paper disc with metal styl Even in 1983 this is primitive; i 10 years' time it will seem prehistoric. Yet it has one major advantage over magnetic recording — the driver can see and interpret at a glance what i recorded. More sophisticated systems are unlikely to be so straightforward.
But although the DTp has consulted the operators, it has apparently not sought the viev‘ of the trade unions, which seems shortsighted. Lorry and coach drivers will have to operate the next generation of tachographs, and surely have legitimate interest in possible changes. The DTp's failure to consult them might well lead tc renewed driver resistance whe a new generation of tachographs finds its way into their cabs.