DVSA goes live with ‘more cost-effective’ ATF service

The Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has begun the formal rollout of its Next Generation Testing (NGT) programme, which it says will provide commercial vehicle operators with a more modern and flexible testing service from the authorised testing facility (ATF) network.

The agency is making its vehicle standards assessors available 24/7, subject to customer demand – while also providing a support team for ATF operators to assist with reporting problems, daily test reports, assessor scheduling availability and improved management of pre-funded accounts.

The new arrangements, which have been piloted since April 2014 in three areas and formally went live in south Wales, Herefordshire and South Yorkshire in March, will be available across Great Britain by 2017.

On 9 March, Alastair Peoples, the chief executive of DVSA, visited Glenside Commercials in Caerphilly, which was among the first to begin using the NGT service.

“We have been working tremendously hard to provide an efficient, modern service for our customers,” he said.

“We are now providing even more flexibility by making tests available whenever customers need them, at any time of the day or week.”

Denise Lovering, commercial director of Glenside Commercials, added: “Glenside was delighted to be asked to help pilot the new service in south Wales and it has proved to be a great success with our customers.”

Almost 90 per cent of annual tests are now carried out at one of 475 privately-run ATFs, rather than at the remaining government-owned test stations. But DVSA’s own assessors still carry out the testing procedure across the ATF network.

Claimed advantages of the ATF approach are that vehicles incur less downtime, since they no longer need to travel to and from DVSA sites – and that it has allowed DVSA to reduce the fees for ATF annual tests, which fell by an average of 3.5 per cent in October.