FTA has come to these conclusions following the completion of four quarterly research programmes carried out in conjunction with the commercial property consultants NAI Fuller Peiser.

FTA Deputy Chief Executive James Hookham said, ‘Implementing the Working Time Directive has preoccupied transport managers for the past 18 months and it continues to be a significant issue in many organisations. The cost of meeting the new requirements has been significant in terms of management time. Our surveys have consistently shown that the flexibility provided by the regulations giving force to the operation of the Road Transport Directive has helped to reduce the worst effects of reducing an average 55 hour working week down to the new statutory 48 hour average. FTA was involved in ensuring flexibilities in the Directive that provided an extension to the reference period for calculating the average from 17 weeks to 26 weeks; that allowed a less rigid and a shorter period to qualify as night work; and that allowed ‘periods of availability’, where drivers were available but not working, not to be counted within the 48 hour average week, were implemented in the UK regulations.

‘Without these flexible arrangements there could be no doubt that the Government’s own impact assessment of productivity losses of close to ten per cent and an annual cost of £1 billion would have come about. As it is the costs, although clearly very substantial following wage increases, revised scheduling, increased bureaucracy and, for 26 per cent of companies surveyed by FTA, the need to employ more personnel, have been contained by a phenomenal effort by transport managers.’
Source: Press Release