Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

 

  

Implementation process for digital tachograph in Turkey has started on February 2010 with designation of Ministry of Transport and Communications as Turkish Authority (TR-A) for Digital Tachograph System undertaking to ensure the coordination between several official and non-official stakeholders and to carry out technical, administrative and organizational functions.

 

In this context, the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), a member of the IRU and TIR carnet issuing and guaranteeing association in Turkey, assumed the responsibility as card issuing authority (CIA), certification authority (CA) and card personalization (CP) organization through a protocol signed on April 16, 2010. TOBB committed to carry out registration and approval of the applications, issuance of the digital certificates for approved applications, electronic and physical personalization of the tachograph cards and delivery of the issued tachograph cards.

To this end, TOBB has established Digital Tachograph Research and Application Center (STAUM) in a remarkable and a record breaking time which is only 3 months. The Turkish Digital Tachograph System (DTS) is active since October 1, 2010 and operates without any interruption since then. By 21.03.2011, 6.462 driver cards, 222 company cards were issued by STAUM.

Although STAUM is at TOBB headquarters in Ankara, drivers, transport companies or services who want to acquire a digital tachograph card may apply to one the nearest authorized Chambers of Trade and/or Industry after completing online pre-application on the STAUM portal, http://staum.tobb.org.tr.

As of March 2011 Chambers of Commerce and Industries located in 20 cities of Turkey are tacho-authorized, and several of their branch offices are established at the border gates and ro-ro ports, including Kapikule-one of the busiest gates in the world- to make life easier for our member companies and drivers. In the years ahead, it is planned that the application process will be performed by all chambers of trade and/or industry located in the city centers throughout the country.

Workshops are first needed to be approved by Ministry of Industry and Trade before operating in Turkey and the standards for digital tachograph workshops are more demanding than elsewhere. Therefore the first workshop could be approved by the end of 2010 and within in a few days, TOBB issued first workshop card. By 21.03.2011, there are 19 approved workshops in Turkey and 49 workshop cards were issued for them.

A couple of digital tachograph trainings were organized for the training of trainers by the Turkish National Police. TOBB had issued so far 482 control cards to control officers all around Turkey and was represented in these training sessions.

Turkey already has an electronic tachograph for domestic road transport operators but the design is fairly different than AETR digital tachograph. Nowadays, under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, some Turkish tachograph manufacturers are coming together to work on a more secure, reliable and traceable electronic tachograph. As being the Card Issuing Authority, Certification Authority and Card Personalization Organization, and also the highest representative of private sector in Turkey, TOBB was represented in these meetings in case of need for a smart card to be used in the electronic tachographs.

TOBB gives great importance to the digital tachograph implementation in Turkey for many reasons and one of them is fully in line with the objective of the UN Decade of Action on Road Safety. In this regard, not only being the CIA, but also representing a high number of transport operators, TOBB is actively participating in public and private events related with digital tachograph - from SC.1 meetings held under UNECE to CEBIT exhibition in Hannover where TOBB had a booth at the exhibition area and introduced Turkish Digital Tachograph System and STAUM to the participants.