Welcome to article seven of ten in this series on trucking safety systems! After starting this series by looking at the roles systems play in organisations and dissecting parts of a carrier’s safety systems, I will now discuss ways in which mandatory vehicle files can be leveraged for greater control over the carrier’s preventative maintenance program.

Vehicle files, like driver files, are compliance requirements for carriers in Alberta [1]. Their purpose is to record important identifying information about the vehicles operated by the carrier and to serve as proof that the carrier has a functioning maintenance program.

Carriers concerned only with compliance will begrudgingly maintain vehicle files only out of an interest in performing well in a future audit. And there is some value in going no further than basic compliance: for example, the requirement to respond to notices of defect (ie. recalls) from vehicle manufacturers can lead a carrier to reduce their risk considerably depending on the nature of the defect.

But, maintenance records provide immense opportunities to control costs and improve uptime, and in order to do so, a carrier needs records and the ability to analyse data. The basic vehicle file lays a foundation of compliance on which more elaborate systems of maintenance management can be built. In the following sections, I will provide a quick overview of the record requirements in an Alberta-based carrier’s vehicle file, and then describe ways in which these records can be used to improve the maintenance system.