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More testing times ahead – new ATF applications to be considered
Logistics UK has welcomed the government’s recommendation that more Authorised Testing Facilities (ATFs) should be allowed to open to help address the current testing capacity crunch in many parts of the UK.
Annual testing was suspended in March 2020, following the first national lockdown, but the moratorium on new ATFs predates the pandemic by three years. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) temporarily paused applications for new ATFs in 2017, a moratorium it said would support the needs of existing ATFs.
HEAVY TESTING VEHICLE REVIEW
As part of its ongoing Heavy Vehicle Testing Review, the Department for Transport (DfT) recently recommended that DVSA should consider allowing more ATFs to open.
Phil Lloyd, Head of Engineering Policy, Logistics UK, said: “We were looking for ways to lift the moratorium during our regular industry meeting, known as the Stanmore Group, which includes representatives from DfT, DVSA and key trade associations. It was about agreeing the principles of how we could lift the moratorium and allow ATF applications to be processed to meet the needs of the industry.”
Initially DVSA expressed concerns that lifting the moratorium could lead to a rapid proliferation of AFTs across the UK. “I said there would be a natural plateau, as long as you agreed the criteria applicants needed to meet before accepting their applications,” Lloyd said.
APPLICATIONS MUST MEET ONE OF FIVE CRITERIA
DVSA reviewed the policy, along with industry bodies, and developed a plan to allow applications for new ATFs. As a first step towards ending the moratorium, new applications will be accepted if a proposed ATF meets one of the following five set criteria:
- The ATF is moving premises within the same geographic area
- A proposed ATF already has ‘approval in principle’ from DVSA
- The proposed facility is in an area of with a substantial shortage of ATFs, currently the Highlands and Islands of Scotland;
- The proposed ATF is in Southern England and is offering testing of fully laden fuel tankers or ADR testing
- The proposed facility will significantly improve the service to heavy vehicle operators by reducing journey times or giving other efficiency benefits.
Operators interested in joining the ATF network by opening a testing site can now apply under any of the five criteria.
Providing that you have sufficient vehicles to justify a least half a day of testing, then you should be able to open an ATF, Lloyd argued, rather than be compelled to pay to use the services of a third-party testing facility.
“If you’re not going to allocate at least half a day to testing, then DVSA won’t allocate the resource,” he said, “It’s called the ‘fair usage policy’. Unless the ATF is going to be sufficiently utilised for the time the examiner is there, then DVSA could refuse to attend.”
WIDENING CRITERIA
Aware that there will be businesses which do not qualify under these criteria, DVSA will make further announcements on how the set of five criteria will be widened in the future.
Before issuing a flow chart of how the widening of criteria is going to work, Lloyd said DVSA is looking to increase its staffing resources. He does not believe that a modest increase in staffing should lead to a similarly modest uplift in AFT capacity, however. “There is no correlation between the number of staff and number of ATFs,” he said, “It’s all to do with the utilisation of resources.”
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Published On: 17/06/2021 17:00:40
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