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Government agencies urged to consider needs of commercial fleet operators for digital services

The FTA outlined its view that Government agencies still fail to consider the needs of commercial fleet operators when designing online systems, and identified at least five different points where vehicle operators had to access digital information in order to satisfy the requirements of operator licensing.

James Firth – FTA’s head of licensing policy and compliance information, said: “The Government’s consultation bemoans the fact that uptake of online services by industry sectors has been weaker in the past than hoped. FTA members are clear – they want to use online services to interact with government, but historically government agencies have failed to design systems which meet industry’s needs.” 

The association added that the Government needs to show how it is going to deliver a “One Stop Shop” for all online services an operator needs to interact with all the motoring agencies and the Office of the Traffic Commissioners.  In addition operators who have hundreds or even thousands of vehicles or drivers need to be able to interact with agencies in bulk instead of using the same one-by-one interfaces designed for the private motorist. 

Firth continued: “A freight operator currently needs one login for o-licensing, a second to view their OCRS score and another to tax their vehicles. They then need to get separate access codes from every driver to see their driving licence information, and yet another code from each driver to see their Driver CPC training. The current system makes it unnecessarily complicated when it should be so straight forward – it all has to be in one place.” 

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