On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) Equipment for Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency

One of DVSA's main activities is roadside enforcement by which we ensure that heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) & public service vehicles (PSVs) are roadworthy and their drivers compliant with current driving standards.

On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) equipment (Autocom) has been used by DVSA enforcement examiners to predominately identify tachograph manipulations since 2014. The equipment has also been used to assist examiners in locating emission cheat devices and provide supporting evidence when enforcement action has been taken. However, due to various reasons beyond DVSA's control, the Autocom OBD equipment has become obsolete and unsupported.

The vehicle management system that DVSA are looking to purchase will provide data on the mechanical condition of the vehicle, including being able to determine the date a defect occurred. This information may help examiners refute a drivers explanation that the defect was not present when they started the journey which will provide a more evidence based approach when reporting on failings in an Operator Maintenance System.

Roadside enforcement activity requires DVSA examiners to be equipped to identify the most serious and serially non-compliant operators in an effective and efficient manner.

Drivers and operators using ever increasingly complex and sophisticated methods to interfere with vehicle systems which are difficult to identify at the roadside. From the interpretation of data from the vehicle Electronic Control Unit by the device operator, it is anticipated that this will lead to manipulations being detected. Another benefit of this equipment is to identify vehicle system fault using a diagnostic interface.