Tachograph
For fleets operating in the European Union and the United Kingdom, the tachograph module archives the mandatory downloads from a driver's card and a vehicle's unit (VU), and checks whether what the tachograph recorded matches what the driver declared manually in their duty status.
Who this is for
The compliance officer uploads files, reviews parse and reconciliation status, and keeps the download calendar current. The fleet manager and organization administrator share the same administrative access. The module isn't available from the driver's mobile app — a driver checks their own hours in the module covered in HOS clocks and duty status.
Key concepts
- .ddd — a file downloaded from a digital tachograph's driver card or vehicle unit (VU), in the binary format described by Regulation (EU) 165/2014.
- Driver card — a 28-day download: one driver's activity record.
- Vehicle unit (VU) — a 90-day download: vehicle data, with no driver activity record.
Upload and parsing
You upload a .ddd file by declaring its kind (driver card or VU) and attaching it to a
specific driver or vehicle — the binary itself goes straight to storage over a presigned
link and never passes through the application server. Once uploaded, the platform tries to
decode the content: from a driver card it reads the card number and the full stream of
activity changes; from a vehicle unit it reads the download period and the vehicle
identifier (VIN or plate). When the content can't be decoded — a corrupted, truncated, or
unrecognized file — the upload still succeeds; the metadata is filled in from the file
name instead (the C_/M_ + date + card-number/plate convention), and the file list shows
that entry as not decoded from binary. Digital-signature verification (the card-issuer
certificate chain) isn't implemented yet — the signature block is skipped, and a file
always shows as unverified.
Activity mapping and reconciliation
For a successfully decoded driver card, the platform maps the tachograph's four activities (driving, other work, availability, break/rest) onto the same four-state duty model the HOS clocks use: driving stays driving, other work and availability become on-duty-not-driving, break and rest become off-duty time. The resulting record feeds the same EU 561/2006 clock engine and is checked for infringements exactly as a manually recorded duty status would be.
Reconciliation runs automatically after every successful driver-card decode and has two effects: every active infringement the tachograph record reveals is recorded (deduped for the same driver, type, and day), and every day where the manually declared driving time diverges from the tachograph reading by more than the configured tolerance is flagged as a discrepancy to resolve. Vehicle-unit files carry no activity record, so they aren't subject to reconciliation.
The download calendar
Every active driver's card must be downloaded at least every 28 days, and every EU- or UK-profile vehicle's unit at least every 90 days. A subject with no archived download yet counts as overdue immediately — the first download is already owed. These deadlines show up both on a dedicated tachograph calendar and inside the shared compliance calendar, alongside expiring credentials and documents.
Specifics
The default retention period for an archived file is 24 months from the download date — configurable, but never below the regulation's 12-month floor. The file's vault document carries the same retention period, so it can't be deleted before it elapses.
Behind the scenes
A daily job checks the download calendar across every organization with an EU or UK profile and raises a reminder for each overdue download — driver card or vehicle unit.