he objective of the framework is to provide policy certainty and consistency to encourage industry to adopt telematics for compliance or enforcement purposes, and in doing so, improve road safety, productivity and environmental outcomes for all Australians.
The growth and development of in-vehicle telematics technology provides opportunities to improve heavy vehicle operations that can result in better safety, productivity and environmental outcomes. Telematics can be used for commercial purposes, such as measuring how a vehicle is driven and its engine performance, and regulatory purposes, such as the electronic work diary.
The emergence of regulatory opportunities raises important questions about when and how governments should access this information to enforce the law, and the minimum standards of the technology.
Industry has told us that the lack of consistent and clear policies on how telematics data is used has slowed the uptake of telematics technology.The framework
The Framework
Following the recommendations in the policy paper Delivering a Compliance Framework for Heavy Vehicle Telematics, approved by the Transport and Infrastructure Council in May 2014, the NTC has developed the Compliance and enforcement framework for heavy vehicle telematics.
The compliance and enforcement framework establishes 10 principles that relate to the privacy, compliance and enforcement, minimum standards, regulatory efficiencies and consistent application. The framework also explains the data dictionary that enables regulatory applications to be consistent with international standards and to be interoperable with other systems.
The framework distinguishes between applications used for enforcement (such as the EWD) or compliance (such as IAP) and purely commercial applications. Standards of performance and security should be higher for telematics used for enforcement purposes.
The framework enable telematics systems to separate commercial and regulatory data so that authorised officers undertaking enforcement activities can only access relevant information.
For example a telematics device may be developed that integrates EWD and payroll features. Under fatigue laws, a driver must present the EWD information to an authorised officer – the telematics system can be designed in such a way that only the EWD, but not the payroll records, can be accessed at the roadside by an authorised officer.