How we collect your CoF information
When you present a vehicle for a CoF inspection, you'll have to provide your transport service licence (TSL) number. This will be recorded on the inspection check sheet, along with other safety inspection information such as any faults detected.
The vehicle testing station will then enter the results of the CoF inspection into our computer system against your TSL number. Inspection results for trailers will be assigned to the operator responsible for the trailer or trailers, which could be the operator responsible for the truck, or another operator altogether.
How we collect your roadside inspection information
During a roadside inspection, the police or one of our inspectors will record your TSL number on the inspection form, along with other safety inspection information such as faults detected.
They'll then enter the results into the Roadside Inspection Database against your TSL number.
How we collect information about offences
If an offence you commit is on a specific schedule of offences, it may affect your operator safety rating. Only offences that impact on road safety will be included in the ORS.
When a police officer issues you with a ticket for an offence, they'll record your TSL number on the ticket along with other offence details. The offence notice will be entered into the New Zealand Police computer system against your TSL number, then sent to us.
Find out more about CoFs, ORS, offences and roadside inspections.
How we collect your crash information
While crash information is not included in your rating, any information about a crash, including the TSL number of any commercial vehicles involved, will be recorded by the police on a crash report form. The crash report forms will be sent to us and entered into our crash analysis system against your TSL number. We will tell you about the crashes that have been recorded against your TSL number when we notify you of your proposed rating, to help you manage your road safety risk.
If an offence notice is issued to you or your driver as a result of the crash, that information will be included in your rating.
Find out more about roadside inspections, offences, crashes and ORS.
Next step – Determining your score
A purpose-designed computer program calculates the scores. This program has been independently reviewed and quality assured by a statistics expert. An independent study has also assessed the safety-related risks relevant to transport operators, drivers and vehicles, and has a role in the weightings assigned to each type of event.
Your scores will be weighted according to the risks that the events pose to road safety. For example, offences pose the highest risk to road safety, so they will contribute more to your rating (your rating will be poorer) than other types of event, such as CoF inspections.
CoF and roadside faults
Some CoF and roadside faults pose a more significant safety risk than others. For example, problems with a vehicle's brakes, lighting or tyres affect its safety more than a certificate not correctly displayed. Because the faults will be weighted, the more serious faults in relation to road safety will be reflected in a poorer rating for you.
Similarly, more serious offences, such as drink-driving, speeding or careless driving, will have a greater impact on your rating than less serious offences.
Other factors will also affect your score, such as:
- the number of times a vehicle is inspected in a certain rating period
- the amount of time a vehicle or driver spends on the road.
For example, you won't be advantaged or disadvantaged by having multiple roadside inspections, and your 'exposure' (or distance travelled) on the road will be taken into account.
Scores will be allocated to a single transport service licence (TSL). If you have more than one TSL, scores will be calculated for each TSL separately.
If a vehicle changes hands during the rating period, the events will be allocated to the operator responsible for the vehicle when the event happened.
Operator safety ratings are calculated using an algorithm, which is a series of mathematical steps which produces a final score, with the score corresponding to a star rating of 1 to 5.
The algorithm steps are shown in the diagram below.
How the event scores are assigned
CoF and RID faults
These are ranked based on the component that is faulty and how unsafe the vehicle becomes if that component doesn't work properly, regardless of the actual nature of the fault. For example, any brake fault will be ranked the same, whether the brake is worn, seized, contaminated and so on. CoF fault ranks range from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) – so for example, faulty brakes are ranked highly while missing certification doesn't pose a high risk to safety so is ranked low.
The ranks were assigned by a team of heavy vehicle specialists from the NZ Transport Agency's (NZTA) Vehicles team, who also manage the VIRM and other vehicle standards and rules.
Roadside inspection faults are also ranked based on the faulty component and the relative risk to safety of that component being faulty.
Ranks are assigned based on the recommended action for that fault as specified in the Categorisation of Defects handbook used by Police and NZTA vehicle inspectors.
Unsafe or 'pink sticker' components have a high bearing on safety and so carry a high score of 9. Defective or green sticker components have a moderate bearing on safety and so carry a medium score of 5. Components that are non-compliant but not unsafe, and have a recommended action of 'Green 2 (ordered to comply)' have a minor bearing on safety and score the lowest at 1.
The recommended actions for roadside faults, and therefore their ORS scores, were assigned by a panel of experts from NZTA, CVIU, the Road Transport Forum and the Bus and Coach Association.
Offences
These are scored in ORS based on the risk to safety of the offending behaviour and range from a score of 20 for the least safety risk to a score of 100 for the greatest safety risk (this includes 3rd and subsequent offences and offences causing injury or death).
The types of offending that carry the highest scores fall roughly into the categories of dangerous driving, drink driving, speeding, unsafe load or vehicle, and fatigue (reflected through work-time and logbook offences.) Some offences carry a score of 0 and have no impact on the rating as they are not safety-related. The scores for offences were assigned by a panel of experts from the Ministry of Transport, NZ Police, NZTA, the Road Transport Forum, and the Bus and Coach Association.
