Traffic Commissioners reflect on the past year

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The release of the Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain’s Annual Report to the Secretary of State 2017-18 sees the Traffic Commissioners reflect on the past year. Many aspects of the industry are covered in the review, from digital licencing, to AdBlue emulator devices, to compliance concerns

L-R: Nick Jones, Traffic Commissioner for Wales, Kevin Rooney, Traffic Commissioner for the west of England, Nick Denton, Traffic Commissioner for the west Midlands, Simon Evans, Traffic Commissioner for the north west of England, Tim Blackmore OBE, Traffic Commissioner for the north east of England, Joan Aitken, Traffic Commissioner for Scotland, Richard Turfitt, Traffic Commissioner for the east of England, Sarah Bell, Traffic Commissioner for London and the south east

The Traffic Commissioners’ annual report announced that the digital licencing application process they had implemented in August 2016 had allowed them to process applications faster. They stated that the average processing time for licence applications was just over seven weeks in the year 2017/2018. The Traffic Commissioners said: “Our target for April 2019 is to see the main transactions fully digital.” Alongside digital licencing applications, they are also offering digital signatures, and they are also working on an automated letters service to notify operators, if they lose their transport manager, of the need to rectify the issue.

The Traffic Commissioners have set a target to get decisions on compliant licence application down to four weeks by April 2019. They do highlight challenges regarding this target, such as legislative barriers, staff recruitment and operator licence fee reform. In context to these challenges they are examining other interventions which may allow them to refine the processing time towards the four week goal. These include the frequency of statutory publications (which could eradicate ‘dormant’ application time), reducing deadlines for operators to provide information and shortening the cut off point for applications to reach completion. […]

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