Fleet compliance software for passenger transport operators.

The problem

What makes passenger transport compliance hard

• 01

  A licence held against passenger undertakings

  A PSV operator licence is granted by a Traffic Commissioner against undertakings about how vehicles and drivers are run, and it is withdrawn the same way. The questions asked are about evidence — inspections at the stated intervals, defects reported in writing and closed, drivers entitled to drive what they are put in — and the answer has to be a document rather than an assurance.

• 02

  Entitlement is narrower, and scarcer

  A PCV entitlement plus a current Driver CPC is a smaller pool than the HGV equivalent, and the people in it are often older. A licence that lapses, a medical that is not renewed or a CPC that runs out does not just create a compliance problem, it removes a driver from a rota that had no slack in it.

• 03

  Checks before a service that cannot wait

  The walkaround happens in the dark, before a departure time that is published and contractual. The pressure is to get the vehicle out and file the sheet later, which is exactly how a day with no record is created — and on a passenger vehicle the items being skipped include doors, steps, ramps and emergency exits.

• 04

  Accessibility equipment that is its own regime

  Ramps, lifts and securing points are safety equipment with their own examination requirements, separate from the vehicle's roadworthiness inspection. A coach can be fully in date on its maintenance file and still be carrying a lift that is outside its examination date, which is a different failure with a different record behind it.

• 05

  Contracts that bring their own auditors

  Local authority and school contracts commonly carry their own conditions — driver checks, vehicle standards, incident reporting — and the body auditing them is not DVSA. Operators end up proving the same compliance twice, in two formats, from the same underlying records.

The answer

How FleetOptix helps

• A licence held against passenger undertakings

  The records the undertakings call for sit against the vehicle or the driver they belong to, and the roll-ups an auditor asks for are exported rather than assembled from three folders. Proving the regime becomes a question of which period you want.

  Incidents and reporting

• Entitlement is narrower, and scarcer

  Licence, CPC and medical expiry sit on one driver record with the flag raised before an entitlement lapses. On a rota with no slack, the warning arriving weeks early is the difference between booking a renewal and cancelling a service.

  Drivers and licensing

• Checks before a service that cannot wait

  The check is submitted from the yard on a phone, so it exists the moment it is done rather than when a sheet is handed in, and a defect reaches the workshop with the vehicle and driver already attached to it.

  Walkaround checks and defects

• Accessibility equipment that is its own regime

  Inspection and examination dates are held against the vehicle they belong to, so equipment running on a different clock from the vehicle's maintenance is visible on the same record rather than in somebody's diary.

  Maintenance and roadworthiness

• Contracts that bring their own auditors

  Shifts, runs and renewal dates sit on one calendar, so a vehicle due for inspection is visible before it is committed to a contracted service rather than after.

  Scheduling and planning

Who it is for

The people doing this job

• Transport managers

  Named on the licence, carrying continuous and effective responsibility for the operation, with their own repute attached to it.

  What is transport manager?

• Operations and traffic staff

  The people matching drivers to duties each day, who need to know an entitlement has lapsed before they allocate the duty, not after.

• Engineering and workshop staff

  Running inspections on a mixed fleet of coaches, buses and minibuses with different intervals, specifications and equipment fitted.

  What is preventative maintenance inspection?

• Drivers

  Completing the first-use check before a departure time they cannot move, and needing a defect to go somewhere that acts on it.

  What is walkaround check?

• Contract and bid managers

  Answering a local authority's compliance questions from the same records the Traffic Commissioner would ask for.

Questions

What passenger transport operators ask

Does FleetOptix handle PSV operator licensing specifically?

It holds the records a PSV operator is expected to produce — inspection history, driver walkaround checks and defect rectification, driver licence and CPC dates — in the same structure as for a goods fleet. It is not a licensing application tool and does not submit anything to a Traffic Commissioner.

Can it track accessibility equipment examinations?

Equipment examination and service dates are recorded against the vehicle they are fitted to, so a lift or ramp running on its own clock sits on the same record as the vehicle's inspections. FleetOptix records that an examination happened and when the next is due; it does not carry out or certify the examination, which is a competent person's job.

We run school contracts. Does it handle DBS records?

FleetOptix tracks driver licence, CPC and medical records. DBS is not one of the record types it is built around, so if DBS expiry tracking is a requirement of your contracts you should treat that as a separate system or ask us before relying on it.

Does it analyse tachograph data or drivers' hours?

No. FleetOptix does not download, analyse or interpret tachograph data and does not calculate drivers' hours compliance — that is a dedicated tachograph package's job. What it holds is the record around it: the driver file, the briefing and the follow-up once an infringement has been identified.

Can depots see only their own vehicles?

Yes. Access is role-based, so staff see the vehicles and drivers they work with, and there is a cross-depot view for the people who need the whole operation.

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