Tachograph

Tachograph - Alasivu

Overview

A tachograph must be installed and used in all vehicles registered in the Member States of the EU that are used for the carriage of goods and passengers by road and that are governed by the European Driving Time and Rest Periods Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 561/2006). As of 1 May 2006, all vehicles of this kind that are commissioned in Finland must be equipped with a digital tachograph. A second generation of digital tachographs (“smart tachographs”) was introduced on 15 June 2019, which now feature, for example, satellite navigation.

Use of tachographs

The responsibility for ensuring that digital tachographs and driver cards work and are used correctly rests with transport companies and their drivers. If analogue tachographs are used, the transport company must ensure that they work as intended and that their drivers know how to use the associated record sheets.

Drivers must use record sheets or driver cards on a daily basis from the moment they take possession of a vehicle. The record sheet or driver card can only be removed from the vehicle at the end of the working day except when permission to remove it otherwise is expressly given.

Transport companies are responsible for ensuring that their drivers are appropriately trained and instructed on the correct use of tachographs. They must also regularly check that their drivers are using tachographs correctly.

Instructions on various tachograph functions and how to use them

Driver card

Each driver has their own driver card. Each driver can only have one valid driver card at a time, and there can be no sharing of driver cards between drivers. Drivers must not use driver cards that are faulty or that have expired. If a driver card develops a fault or is damaged, lost or stolen, the driver in question must request a replacement card within seven calendar days. See here for more information (in Finnish).

Transport companies are responsible for ensuring that no driver of theirs who does not have a valid driver card is given a vehicle fitted with a digital tachograph except when driving the vehicle without a driver card can be justified by one of the reasons listed in the European Tachograph Regulation or the AETR.

Processing of driving time and rest period data by transport companies

In order to itemise driving time and rest period data and protect data subjects’ privacy, transport companies must use their company card to lock the data stored in their digital tachographs before each vehicle is commissioned. Company cards are issued by Ajovarma Oy.

Employers must copy the driving time and rest period data from their vehicles’ digital tachographs in order to monitor compliance with the rules on driving times and rest periods, to ensure that the rights and responsibilities associated with employment relationships are being adhered to and to be able to coordinate transport assignments. The data from all vehicles in Finland must be copied at least once every two months and whenever a vehicle is sold or a digital tachograph uninstalled. Employers must copy the driving time and rest period data from each driver card at least once every three weeks for all the weeks during which the driver in question was at work. The driving time and rest period data from the driver cards of any temporary drivers also need to be copied at least every three weeks for every week during which the drivers are employed. Data from vehicles that are based abroad must be copied upon each vehicle’s entry to Finland.

The original record sheets and copies made of digital tachographs and driver cards must be kept for a period of at least one year. However, record sheets used in driving tests or the data stored in digital tachographs during tests do not need to be kept.

Drivers have the right to ask their employer for a printout of the driving time and rest period data copied from their digital tachograph and driver card.

Operational testing of tachographs

Tachographs must be inspected at least once every two years in an approved workshop.

If a tachograph breaks or develops a fault, it is the transport company’s duty to have it repaired by an approved fitter or workshop as soon as circumstances permit. If the vehicle cannot be returned to the transport company’s premises within a period of one week calculated from the day of the breakdown or of the discovery of the fault, the repair must be carried out en route.

While a tachograph is unserviceable or malfunctioning, it is the driver’s duty to record enough data to enable the driver to be identified (name and driving licence or driver card number), including their signature, as well as the information for the various periods of time that are no longer recorded or printed out correctly by the tachograph.

Disclosure of driving time and rest period data to the authorities

Transport companies

Transport companies must, at the request of any authorised control officer, produce or hand over all record sheets and/or data copied and printed out from digital tachographs and driver cards.

Falsifying, concealing, suppressing or destroying data recorded on a record sheet or stored in a tachograph or a driver card, or printouts from a tachograph, is forbidden. Any manipulation of a tachograph, record sheet or driver card that could result in data and/or printed information being falsified, suppressed or destroyed is also prohibited. Vehicles must not be fitted with any device that could be used to this effect.

Drivers

Drivers of vehicles fitted with recording equipment must be able to produce, whenever requested by an authorised control officer, their driver card and the record sheets used by the driver in the previous 28 days. Any manual records and printouts made as required under the European Tachograph Regulation and the European Driving Time and Rest Periods Regulation also need to be presented upon request.