There were a few companies singled out for attention: the first haulier to get involved, Staples Vegetables, and the first bus & coach operator: Lucketts Group of Worthing. As of the end of the pilot, about 4% of commercial vehicle fleets were involved in the scheme; it predicts that proportion will rise to 10% by the end of the year.
The scheme involves organisations sending summary statistics about their compliance to drivers’ hours and maintenance requirements to DVSA. In return for keeping within stated limits, they are targeted less in roadside inspections. In fact, DVSA chief executive Gareth Llewellyn explained in a press conference that its systems have a new colour code for ER participants, blue, in addition to its risk-based colour codes (red, amber and green). DVSA has also published a guide to the system, available via https://is.gd/usawog.
When asked how he responds to criticism from operators that ER’s requirements outweigh its advantages, Llewellyn replied: “It’s interesting at the start of a new scheme where the benefits will come from. Certainly in some of the conversations we’ve had with some of the operators, they see it as a way to create an advantage for them…there’s an opportunity to create some kind of a market differentiation. You would hope that over a period of time the end customer values road safety enough that they’re prepared to put these people ahead when it comes to the tender list as well.”
He went on to say that ER might make other compliance schemes obsolete. “One of the things that surprised me coming into the industry was the signs that we were starting to get different schemes in different parts of the country. That must be a worry for operators. Each one must be marginally different. They require different types of compliance mechanisms, different types of metrics. All of those add extra costs. The value of Earned Recognition is that it is everywhere. It’s a national standard scheme that everybody can apply for and aspire to. And I hope over a period of time it means that we are less likely to see these regional-based schemes or city-based schemes; those are the ones that will cause extra cost to industry.”