Standard driver hours limit Heavy Vehicle drivers to a maximum of 12-hours driving in any 24-hour period before they must effectively “down-tools” for a minimum of 7-hours rest, or more likely, longer.
Moving to an accredited Fatigue Management System (FMS) may offer increased flexibility, productivity and safety to your business, but it does come at a cost. Most organisations adopt a Basic Fatigue Management (BFM), which I’ll focus on here.
Essentially, BFM will allow a company’s drivers to work to a maximum of 14-hours in any 24-hour period, with up to a maximum of 84-hours per week. This offers an increase of 12-hours per week over standard operating hours 72-hour per week limit.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch!
While an FMS offers increased flexibility to transport operations, it comes at considerable administrative and compliance cost, which can be a little daunting at first.
A lot of this information I have sourced from the NHVR Fatigue Management Accreditation Guide 2021, which is quite in-depth, so I’ll paraphrase here a little to get you started.
The aim of Fatigue Management Accreditation is to achieve improvements in road safety and transport productivity.
Accredited operators (and drivers) must be suitably trained to meet prescribed performance standards outlined by the NHVR. A company must produce, document and adhere to its own FMS, conduct internal audits, quarterly and yearly, and be subject to independent audits periodically to ensure compliance.
As an accredited operator you must document your FMS methods and explain how it works, this will form the framework of your company’s FMS. To remain accredited, you will need documented evidence that proves your system works and drivers are keeping within specified limits. In part, this will mean keeping records of schedules, rosters and work diaries, you must also be able to prove that you always follow your company’s written procedures.
The accreditation guide breaks down into seven standards outlined below;
- Scheduling and rostering.
- Scheduling and rostering drivers duties in accordance with operating limits.
- Health and wellbeing for performed duty.
- Systems must be developed and documented to ensure drivers are in a fit state to safely perform their duties.
- Drivers must be subjected to an “Aust. Roads”, fitness to drive medical every three-years for drivers up to 49-years old or annually for 50-plus year old drivers.
- Training and education.
- All persons, including managers must be competent and understand fatigue management issues.
- Drivers must be certified competent to TLIF 0005 (apply a fatigue risk management system).
- If a person is a scheduler as described in heavy-vehicle driver fatigue legislation, or supervises or manages drivers, that person must demonstrate competence and be trained to comply with TLIF 0006 (administer a fatigue management system).
- It should also be noted that owner drivers are both drivers and schedulers and must have accreditation in both TLIF 005 and TLIF 006 to be compliant.
- Responsibilities and management practices.
- Responsibilities and duties of all parties involved in the company’s FMS must be clearly defined and documented.
- Fatigue management systems must be in place to deter non-compliance and to implement corrective actions.
- Internal review.
- The FMS must be subject to an internal review, quarterly and annually to review overall compliance.
- Records and documentation.
- The standard requires a system to manage and maintain records under the fatigue management standards. Documented evidence must be maintained to demonstrate the level of compliance with the fatigue management standards.
- Workplace Conditions.
- A company’s FMS must ensure that workplaces, including vehicles, provide for adequate restorative sleep and proper rest, using practices and facilities or equipment that meet with workplace health and safety legislation and Australian vehicle design rules.
Summary
BFM accreditation, when used sensibly can be a great tool. In my opinion, long distance driver are set to benefit the most. Spending excessive time waiting in a truck for 24-hour periods to re-set can have a negative impact on fatigue. A 10- hour break is more than adequate to have a feed, shower and rest for drivers who sleep in their trucks, and a consecutive 10-hour break each day will eliminate any chance of exceeding the 14-hour work limit in any 24-hour period (10+14=24hrs).
Try not to be greedy.
On the other side of the equation, schedulers and allocators should avoid scheduling 14-hour work shifts for local drivers, as the risk of delays during the shift preventing a driver from returning to their base within the maximum allowable hours, is quite real. (Remember, even local drivers within a 100km radius of their base must fill out a work diary under BFM).
Consideration should also be given to local drivers working what could essentially be a 15-hour (14-hours work, one-hour rest) shift if they commute long distances from their home to their work locations. I have worked for companies in the past, which would allocate 13–14-hour days, this was then added to my 1-hour commute at EACH end of the day. 17-hour days for 5-6 days a week can be extremely taxing in terms of fatigue.
As you can see, the administration burden for fatigue accreditation is not insignificant. In saying that, most transport companies by now, I would think, employ a dedicated compliance manager, so once the initial framework is put into place, fatigue compliance can become a seamless, integral part of everyday business, while offering increased profitability and flexibility.
