He found the company previously had confused lines of management and responsibility and a large turnover of Transport Managers and their collective inexperience together with amount of driving work being undertaken by key managers and administrators. Since June 2017, no fewer than 12 different individuals were named as Transport Managers on the licence. In 2018 alone there were 7 changes of Transport Manager. The commissioner saw that the company had now addressed this issue and was now much more stable.
Another serious issue that came to light was the use of underage drivers deployed to drive large PSVs that they were not entitled to. The drivers concerned were interviewed and all said they believed they were entitled to drive as the journeys were less than 50km. They clearly did not understand the terms of the restriction extended to any non-regular passenger carrying journeys.
The commissioner said "This lack of understanding appears to have also been the position in relation to the Operator's planners when deploying the drivers on these journeys. I do not hear any evidence that the use of the underage drivers was the result of a conscious decision to deliberately flout the law. However, it does appear it does appear there was a lack of knowledge amongst key staff about the restrictions and a lack of systems in place to prevent such inappropriate deployment."
The commissioner acknowledged the changes successfully made by the operator since 2018 said "the operator…has addressed the vulnerabilities… The evidence it supplied of its current compliance in advance of the hearing was found to be generally satisfactory. The Traffic Examiner commented on that information that it indicated "a professional approach to Driver Management Systems that comply with the requirement of being a complaint operator."
The decision can be found here.
