Reading tachograph reports

📝 Beta article — this article is part of our new help center. If a step doesn’t match what you see in Movcar, let us know — we’re refining the content daily.

A tachograph report is the legal record of every minute of driving, resting, and other activity for a commercial vehicle and its driver. EU regulation (561/2006 and EU/2014/165) requires:

• Driver card data downloaded at least every 28 days.
• Vehicle unit data downloaded at least every 90 days.

The data comes off the tachograph as a .DDD (digital) or .C1B (smart) file. Most fleets use external analysis software (TIS-Web, Optac, Continental VDO Fleet, etc.) to convert the raw file into a human-readable report; Movcar’s role is to track that the downloads happened on time and store the records.

This article covers what’s in a tachograph report once you have one in front of you, and how Movcar’s logs help you stay compliant.

What’s in a tachograph report

A typical analysis-software report has these sections:

1. Header

• Driver name and driver card number.
• Vehicle registration.
• Period covered.
• Download date.

Verify these match what you have in Movcar (open the driver and vehicle records to cross-check).

2. Daily activity log

Per day, broken out by minute or block:

This is the row your driver-hours compliance check focuses on. Look for:

• Daily driving ≤ 9 hours (extendable to 10 hours twice per week).
• Weekly driving ≤ 56 hours.
• Fortnightly driving ≤ 90 hours.
• Continuous driving ≤ 4h 30m before a 45-minute break (which can be split into 15 + 30).
• Daily rest ≥ 11 hours (reducible to 9 hours three times per week).
• Weekly rest ≥ 45 hours (reducible to 24 hours every other week, with compensation).

3. Violations / events

Most analysis tools list violations explicitly:

• Driving exceeded — daily, weekly, fortnightly limits breached.
• Insufficient break — driver drove > 4h30 without 45m break.
• Insufficient rest — daily or weekly rest below the threshold.
• Speeding events — vehicle exceeded the configured speed limit (typically 90 km/h for trucks).
• Card insertion/withdrawal — driver card events (especially mid-shift swaps).

Each violation has a date, time, and severity. This is what your transport-authority audit will look at first.

4. Speed graph

Most reports include a speed-over-time chart for the period. Useful for:

• Spot-checking unusually fast journeys.
• Verifying delivery timestamps against speed (was the driver actually moving when they claimed?).

5. Summary

Totals for the period — total driving hours, total rest, total distance, average speed, number of trips.

How Movcar fits in

Movcar doesn’t analyse the .DDD file directly. Movcar tracks:

1. The tachograph device itself — type, calibration validity, vehicle link. See How to add a tachograph record.
2. Each download event — when you downloaded data from this device, by whom, for which period. See How to log a tachograph data download.
3. Calibration certificates — uploaded against the tachograph record.

This means: when an inspection asks “prove you downloaded card data within the last 28 days for vehicle X”, you open the tachograph record in Movcar and show the download log. Movcar doesn’t tell you what’s in the data — but it proves you have it.

For the actual analysis, you pair Movcar with one of:

• TIS-Web (Continental VDO) — common in Europe.
• Optac3 (Stoneridge).
• Tachogram, Fleet Complete, Webfleet — others.

Upload the .DDD to the analysis tool, get the violation report, archive both files in your own records.

What to flag during a review

When you (or whoever does compliance) reads the report:

1. Any red violation row. Even one. Document why it happened and what you’ll do.
2. Repeated minor violations from the same driver. Pattern = training issue.
3. Speed events above the configured limit. Even brief ones — speed cameras don’t care.
4. Card-out periods (no driver card inserted). The vehicle moved without an identified driver — investigate.
5. Gaps in the data. If you downloaded for 1–28 May but data ends on 15 May, the vehicle was used between 15 and 28 May with no record. That’s an unreadable-data violation in itself.

Where to keep the analysed report

Best practice:

• Movcar — log the download (date, period covered), attach the analysis report PDF if available.
• Driver record — store the driver’s analysed report against their record in Movcar Documents.
• Off-site archive — keep raw .DDD files in long-term storage for the 2 years EU rules require.

What’s next?

• How to log a tachograph data download — every time you pull data.
• Tachograph compliance basics — driver hours and rules summary.
• How to add a document to a vehicle — attaching analysis PDFs.