Transportation Compliance Blog
The Role of a Vehicle File in the Carrier Safety Management System
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.
The Role of a Driver File in a Carrier’s Safety System
Welcome to article six of ten in this series on trucking company safety systems! Up to now, we have discussed the importance of taking a systematic approach to achieving compliance and improving safety, examined the role different people play in safety systems, and dived into specific arms of the overarching carrier safety system.
This article will describe the role that driver files play in the safety management system of a carrier. While the maintenance of accurate and up-to-date driver files might be viewed as nothing more than an exercise in basic compliance, there is more to driver files than meets the eye.
Driver files are a tangible representation of a system. Multiple roles and processes mesh to produce the ordered collection of data contained within a driver file, and by auditing driver files, safety system efficacy can be assessed. This is part of the reason why compliance audits - both internal and external - examine the contents of a carrier’s driver files: missing documentation is indicative of failures throughout the safety management system.
Many carriers spend considerable time on maintaining driver files, and the driver file is sometimes thought of simply as a place where documents go to wait for some uncertain future audit. It is true that these files are repositories for important documentation that forms an important part of a compliance audit, and I will provide a short section on the minimum items required in a driver file in Alberta. However, my main focus here is to shift such a mentality to one where driver files are seen as a valuable resource from which important data can be extracted to guide and improve operations.
Trucking Hours of Service Management Systems - The Key Actors
Welcome to article five of ten in this series on trucking company safety systems! Past articles in this series have explored the roles of systems in trucking companies, and have also dug into some of the specific purposes safety management systems have at trucking companies.
In this article, I will be examining parts of the carrier’s safety management system that are used to manage compliance with hours of service (HOS) regulations. My intention here is not to tell the reader how to manage HOS compliance; instead, I want to show the reader the different roles within the overall management system, that not all of these roles are under the control or even influence of the carrier, and that all of these roles provide valuable input for the system.
But first, let’s briefly describe the differences between HOS management and fatigue management.
Carrier Occupational Health and Safety Systems: The Key Actors
In the trucking industry, companies frequently segregate compliance requirements with National Safety Code (NSC)-related legislation and OHS legislation. Many companies ignore their OHS responsibilities and focus on NSC; for companies that strictly operate over-the-road fleets and don’t have their own facilities, OHS may not seem as important as the on-road safety elements for the company.
Carrier Maintenance Systems - The Key Actors
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the maintenance system in a carrier and how it relates to safety and compliance. While a preventative maintenance program is an important part of ensuring equipment remains reliable and repair costs are controlled, well-maintained vehicles are also safer to operate than their neglected counterparts.