Sebastian Theuerkauf
Flag’ pictogram now automatically displays documented border crossings with country ID in the DAKO web portal
The duty to enter the country on the tachograph before starting the journey (confirm with ‘OK’) remains unaffected and is considered a social offence if not entered
Automatic saving of border crossings only in combination with Gen2V2 tachograph and new driver card
Since the end of August 2023, intelligent tachograph version 2 (Tacho Gen2V2) has been mandatory for new vehicles in commercial road haulage from 3.5 tonnes. The new functions of this tachograph version enable, among other things, more efficient monitoring of cabotage journeys and employee postings. For this purpose, they are able to automatically record the border crossings of a vehicle. In combination with a second-generation driver card, this information is also stored on the card. This eliminates the need to drive to the first rest area after a national border for manual entry. In DAKO Fleet, we therefore deliberately show these automatically recorded border crossings with a different symbolism than for those entered manually (see picture). The country code in the flag symbol indicates the country that was entered at the corresponding time.
So far, so uncomplicated. Of course, there are still commercial vehicles on the European motorways that have older-generation tachographs installed, and it goes without saying that older driver cards (until their regular expiry date after five years) remain valid. It is also possible that there are both new vehicles (with new tachographs) and older lorries in a fleet and that the drivers switch between them. In all these cases, it is important to make the drivers aware of this and point out the differences in storage. The following scenarios arise:
|
Tachograph version |
Driver card version |
Event |
|
Gen2V2 units (e.g. VDO DTCO 4.1 or Stoneridge SE5000-8.1) |
Generation 2 / G 2 (latest) |
Automatic recording in the tachograph’s mass memory and on the driver card |
|
Gen2V2 units |
Generation 1 |
Automatic recording only in the mass memory of the tachograph (optional manual entry on driver card possible) |
|
G1 and G2V1 units |
Independent of driver card generation |
Manual recording required |
If the ‘new’ Gen2V2 tachographs are used in combination with the ‘old’ driver card (G1), the border crossings are not stored on the driver card and are therefore not visible during a roadside check. However, if both are read out (mass memory of the tachograph and the ring memory of the driver card), the border crossings can be traced without any problems.
This means that if a driver with a first-generation driver card in connection with a vehicle in which a Gen2V2 tachograph is installed changes vehicles and does not manually record the border crossing on the driver card, the control officers cannot view this data during a roadside check (as border crossing data cannot be read from the first-generation driver card). However, the missing data can be made available to the authorities by the transport companies within a prescribed period after downloading the tachograph data.
