Six years running compliance for a 12-vehicle fleet out of a yard in Coventry. Mixed fleet — flatbeds, curtainsiders, one refrigerated unit. About eight full-time drivers, the rest agency. Before that, I was driving myself.
The job is different from the inside. Drivers think the TM is the person who shouts at you about tacho infringements. Operators think the TM is the person who keeps the TC happy. Both of those are part of it. Neither is the whole picture.
This is what the job actually looks like across a week — the actual tasks, the cadence, the things you can't plan for.
The first thing every morning: what came in overnight
Tachograph downloads run automatically on most modern systems — either the vehicle unit phones home via telematics overnight, or drivers insert cards at end of shift and the system picks them up. By 08:00, a working TM should have any downloads from the previous day queued for analysis.
The first job is review. Not a quick glance — a proper read of the infringement report. What did the system flag? Missing rest? Over-driving? Break not taken on time? Tacho mode anomaly? Each flagged item needs an assessment: is this a genuine infringement, a data issue (card pulled at wrong moment, tacho malfunction), or something the driver needs to explain?
Within 24 to 48 hours of identifying an infringement, I need to have spoken to the driver. That's the Traffic Commissioner's expectation — active management means you're not sitting on infringement data for a week before reviewing it. Write the conversation up. What was the driver's explanation? Was it accepted? What action was taken? All of that goes into the infringement log.
That's not a nice-to-have. The TC — and DVSA, if they request records — will look at your infringement log and ask whether you knew about infringements in a reasonable time and what you did about them. A log that shows a three-week gap between a card download and a driver interview is a log that suggests the TM isn't managing actively.
PMI scheduling — the diary that can't slip
Preventive maintenance inspections are a condition of the operator licence. The inspection interval has to be maintained — whether that's six-weekly or some other agreed interval, documented in the operator's maintenance agreement with a contractor or in-house workshop. The vehicle must not go past the interval without an inspection being completed and the record signed off.
My job was to keep a rolling diary. Every vehicle, every inspection date, every overdue trigger. If a vehicle is approaching its PMI date and the workshop slot hasn't been booked — that's on me. If a driver is out on a run that'll take a vehicle past its interval — that needs to be managed before it happens, not after.
The diary doesn't have to be complicated. A spreadsheet with vehicle, last inspection date, interval, and next inspection date is enough if it's actually maintained. The problem isn't the system — it's that a busy week means the diary doesn't get updated, then a month's gone by and three vehicles are overdue, and you're phoning the workshop frantically trying to get slots.
A vehicle that's operated past its PMI interval, even by a day, is a question the TC will want answered. "We were busy" is not the answer they're looking for.
Driver licence checks
Regular checks of driver licence validity are another operator undertaking. The DVLA online service — or a commercial licence check provider — lets you verify that a driver's entitlement is current, no disqualifying endorsements have been added, and the licence hasn't been revoked. This should be happening at minimum every three to six months for regular drivers, more frequently if there's any indication of a problem.
An operator who deploys a driver whose licence has lapsed — even unknowingly — has failed in their duty. DVSA have prosecuted operators for this. The defence of "I didn't know" doesn't hold if you haven't checked. The checks need to be documented — date, who was checked, result — so you can show you had a system in place.
Agency drivers are the gap that catches fleets out. You assume the agency is checking. Some are diligent; some aren't. For agency drivers working regularly at your site, getting sight of the licence yourself periodically is worth doing. The liability sits with whoever deployed the driver on the specific vehicle, not just whoever employed them.
Defect reports — review and sign-off
Every pre-trip defect report that comes back to the office needs to be reviewed. Not rubber-stamped — reviewed. If a driver has recorded a defect, someone with authority needs to assess it: is this a category that requires the vehicle to be taken off the road? Can it continue to the next PMI? Does it need urgent workshop attention?
That assessment needs to be recorded on the sheet. Not just a signature — a clear indication of what was decided and why. A defect sheet that shows a driver reported a brake fault, and then the next day the vehicle went out with no record of anyone having assessed or addressed it, is exactly the kind of document that causes problems at a public inquiry.
Review the reports daily. Sign off what's been actioned. Flag what's outstanding to the workshop. Keep the completed sheets in the vehicle file.
The unexpected call from DVSA
I've had DVSA at the yard three times. Never with warning. Twice it was a traffic examiner wanting to check tacho records and driver documentation. Once it was a vehicle examiner doing a spot roadworthiness check on two vehicles that happened to be in the yard at the time.
The traffic examiner's process: they want to see the tacho download records, the infringement log, driver licence check records, CPC expiry dates, and sometimes the drivers' hours records going back 28 days. They may also want to look at the maintenance records — the PMI log, inspection certificates, defect reports. All of it needs to be accessible within a reasonable time. Telling an inspector "I'll have to look for those, they might be in a filing cabinet somewhere" is not a good answer.
My system: vehicle files in a cabinet by fleet number, driver files alphabetically in a separate cabinet. Tacho analysis on the system, accessible immediately. Maintenance records with the workshop file for each vehicle. When DVSA walked in, I could pull any driver's records for the past 28 days in under two minutes. That's not because I'm especially organised — it's because I'd been asked to produce records on short notice before and I knew what happened when you couldn't.
OCRS — and what the TM's job has to do with it
The Operator Compliance Risk Score is the TC's view of how your fleet is performing based on DVSA encounters. Every roadside stop, every vehicle inspection, every prohibition adds to the calculation. Green is where you want to be. Red is where you really don't want to be.
The TM's job directly affects OCRS. Infringements that happen because the TM isn't reviewing downloads, or because PMIs are being missed, or because defect reports aren't being actioned — those feed into roadside stops and prohibition rates, which feed into OCRS. The score follows the management, not just the drivers.
A fleet that suddenly moves from green to amber or red gets additional DVSA attention. More stops, more inspections. Which means more data going into OCRS. The cycle accelerates. Getting back from red takes a long time — typically 12 to 24 months of clean encounter data before the score starts recovering.
The TM's job is to stay green. Not through luck, but through running the daily review, maintaining the PMI diary, keeping the defect records, doing the licence checks. The basics, done consistently, produce the score.
The Traffic Commissioner relationship
Most TMs don't meet the TC directly, most of the time. The TC sees the operator's record — the OCRS, any complaints, any DVSA referrals. If the record is clean, the TC has no reason to call the operator in.
Where TMs do engage with the TC is on licence applications and variations, on responses to TC inquiries when something has gone wrong, and — if things are bad enough — at a formal public inquiry. The TC takes "continuous and effective" management seriously. An external TM who can demonstrate they're genuinely involved — that they know the fleet, know the drivers, have reviewed the records recently — is in a very different position to one who's a name on the application form and nothing more.
One thing I'd tell anyone taking on a TM role for the first time: keep records of your own activity. Not just the vehicle and driver records — records showing what the TM did and when. A log of infringement reviews, decisions taken, workshop instructions given. If you ever need to demonstrate to the TC that you were managing the fleet actively, your own records are what you'll produce.
ShiftOwt is designed partly for exactly this problem — keeping the compliance records visible across driver availability, download review, PMI scheduling, and CPC tracking, in one place. If you're a TM trying to manage this without three separate systems, it might be worth a look. Agency pricing available for fleets.