Senior traffic commissioner urges operators to support MPRS

Addressing the Logistics UK Fleet Engineer conference in Warwickshire, senior traffic commissioner (TC) Kevin Rooney asked his audience for help in boosting the Maintenance Provision Rating Scheme (MPRS), which launched in April last year.

Over 230 facilities were now signed up, but three-quarters of them were manufacturers’ franchised workshops, and “only about 12 were small independents”.

He asked delegates to include MPRS in their maintenance purchasing requirements, and said proposals to extend it to trailer specialists and mobile workshops were in development.

There was an online quiz which would enable potential recruits to see what their rating might be.

“I want 2,000 workshops in the MPRS,” he said.

He then turned his attention to ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). This was an area where some official advice had not kept up with developments, leading to uncertainty.

“There’s loose wording in the official Categorisation of Vehicle Defects which could lead operators to class it as a ‘fix it when you can’ issue, but I’m not sure that’s the right approach.

“The Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness says that every part of a vehicle’s braking system and its means of operation must be effective, which would include automatic emergency braking, for example.”

Conversely, he argued that fleet engineers should not let the Guide get in the way of progress.

Rhetorically, he asked, “Why do we inspect vehicles every six weeks when we know there’s nothing wrong with them?

“I’ve never been approached by an operator saying, ‘can we use predictive maintenance rather than six-weekly inspections?’ If you don’t need six-weekly inspections, then say so.”

West Midlands TC Miles Dorrington was to retire, and Senior TC Kevin Rooney feared that replacing him may be a lengthy process. Current North East TC Tim Blackmore is moving to the West Midlands to plug the gap, but as STC Rooney pointed out, this will create a further vacancy in that area.

“It took two-and-a-half years to find a new traffic commissioner for Scotland,” he said.

STC Rooney also admitted that efforts by the Department for Transport (DfT) to reform the operator licensing system had stalled.

“The DfT were making good progress on this, but then the staff working on it were diverted to dealing with the shipping crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.”