The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) launched its earned recognition pilot scheme last week (Jan 31st) with Cawleys one of just 31 companies taking part in the pilot, and the only waste management company in the UK to be involved at this stage.

Earned recognition is a new way of recognising safe and responsible vehicle operators and when the pilot ends in Spring it will be launched to the market at the Commercial Vehicle Show in April.

Through a system of connected, real time monitoring, organisations with lorries, buses and coaches prove they meet driver and vehicle standards against key performance targets (KPI).

All the assessment and monitoring takes place on line, giving a dramatic reduction in the amount of time and paper work involved in maintaining and proving proper compliance, and building a much great degree of trust and cooperation between the DVSA and the haulier involved. 

Cawleys, a third-generation family business, has been an early adopter of many innovations in the waste management sector, including Anaerobic Digestion (AD) for commercial food waste; investment in its own Material Recycling Facility (MRF) and most recently becoming a partner with bio-bean for recycling coffee waste.

“Transportation efficiency and safety is central to a good waste management service.  It makes complete sense to be part of this pilot scheme, as part of our business ethos.  The scheme covers everything we do already but just makes the whole process so much more efficient and open.  It can only be a positive thing for our industry” said Phil Gudgeon, Director of Waste Collection and Logistics at Cawleys.

“It was a very rigorous process to take part in the pilot, involving a 28 page document and onsite auditing, but again this is only a good thing for our industry as a whole and something I’m really proud Cawleys has spearheaded, even if it did take over my life for a while…” Phil continued.

Cawleys introduced new software, R2C, to centralise and connect up its systems to the DVSA which will see it marked and measured every four weeks against the following KPIs: