News

Two years ago, MT's sister title, Commercial Motor, conducted a phone poll of VOSA test stations to establish the average lead time for an annual HGV test. Last week, MT and CM decided to repeat the exercise, with some interesting results.

As of January, all test bookings can only be made through VOSA's central call centre in Swansea, so it is no longer possible to phone the individual test stations directly. Unable to penetrate the call centre's strict  policy of not speaking to journalists, we were directed to VOSA's website where it publishes average forward booking times, collated once a week on a Monday, from the call centre.

Unhappy that we were unable to obtain the data ourselves, and with statistics not provided for some of the stations, we decided to conduct our own poll using VOSA's online booking service, which it assures us is the same system the operators at the call centre use, so there should be no discrepancies.

The online booking service has been available for single test bookings since December 2008, and a trial for multiple bookings is currently taking place.

Armed with a vehicle registration from a friendly operator, we whizzed through the online booking service on the afternoon of Monday 23 February and obtained forward booking times for all 75 full-time stations in less thanan hour. Carlisle is currently closed for refurbishment, so we do not have results for this site.

What did we find?

Comparing our online lead times with those obtained two years ago, the national average wait time for a test has dropped to 4.31 days from 5.9 days in February 2007. Looking at the average wait times per region, four out of the eight regions have improved their lead times over the past two years, while three have got worse and one remains the same.

Operators in the Midlands have the shortest wait time at 2.67 days on average, while those in Wales and the West Midlands have the longest lead time at 5.73 days. The South-East has seen the greatest improvement, from an average of 12.1 days in 2007 to 4.8 days, while the North-East has experienced the greatest increase from 2.8 days in 2007 to an average of 4 days.

Overall, lead times are satisfactory, with 32 stations offering tests within 1 - 2 days. The longest waits are 13 days at Chadderton (NW), 12 days at Lancing (SE), and 11 at Guildford (SE).

However, although lead times may not be that long, actually booking tests may prove problematic. VOSA informs MT that its call centre has been experiencing "unprecedented high call volumes".

"The increased time to answer the phone will be resolved, and measures have been put in place to reduce any impact on customers," says a VOSA spokesperson.

Joan Williams, FTAhead of road freight and enforcement policy, tells MT: "VOSA has kept the FTA updated on the problems it has been experiencing at its contact centre in Swansea and we have relayed this information to our members. We have been assured that there will be a resolution to these issues soon. Until then, measures have been put in place by VOSA to reduce any impact on its customers, including drafting in additional staff."

Operators' perspective

Cameron Young, MD of Cameron Young Transport in Dumfries, has not found the call centre effective. He says: "Luckily we are based only a five-minute walk away from our VOSA test station in Dumfries, so I just walk down there and book our tests in person - it is much quicker and easier."

Paul Abbott, operations director at Knights of Old, says: "Our main vehicle supplier, Truckeast (Scania), Corby, has advised us that the new contact centre is not as flexible as the old system of phoning the local test stations, therefore users have to be better organised themselves, which is perhaps not such a bad thing."

Although the RHA hasn't received complaints from members about the efficiency of the call centre, it says its members have been upset at "losing the personal relationship with test centre staff that they've established over the years".

VOSA tells MT that it has 78 contact-centre agents trained to take bookings, as well as a pool of 12 staff that can be called upon from other departments during times of high call demand. During the week commencing 23 February, the average wait time for a caller was 16 seconds.

To book tests online, go to this website.