VIMS: bringing vehicle inspection centres under the microscope

A vehicle inspection centre in Chile is capable of testing up to 350 light vehicles a day! This is far removed from what we are used to in France or even Europe.
How can organisation and management of inspection centres, and reliability of inspections be ensured with such high throughput?
Find out why these giga centres, in Chile or elsewhere, have chosen ACTIA's VIMS (Vehicle Inspection Management System) to address these challenges.

To comprehensively manage multi-line vehicle inspection centres Equipment connectivity for fully automated inspections

The VIMS makes it possible to connect measurement tools to each other. This ensures the overall management of a vehicle inspection centre.

From the customer's arrival and the start of the intake process, through to the vehicle inspection certificate being issued and sent to the appropriate authorities; the VIMS software records the data from all the measuring equipment.

The various centre management modules incorporated in Vehicles Inspection Management System:

• - Centre: management of the centre's day-to-day activity (assignment of operators to a line, float management, centre activity reports).

• - Check-out: manage payments and record new transactions, information and vehicle history checks.

• - Inspection: monitor test processes, procedures and instructions and retrieve the results.

• - Supervision: supervise and control the line activities (checking discrepancies between the vehicle information records and new data, operator alerts in the event of a problem).

• - Lounge: the external version of the VIMS software, enabling your customers to track the progress of their vehicle in the inspection process in real time.

• - Delivery: automatic transfer of the results data to the regulatory authorities for renewal of the roadworthiness certificate (if the vehicle passes inspection, of course).

No human intervention in the centre management system program

At the end of the inspection, the results are automatically analysed by the software and compared with the reference data that are specific to the existing legislation of the country. All of these stages are performed without human intervention in the VIMS program. The role of the inspection technician is restricted to positioning the vehicle at the various inspection stations.

Vehicles waiting in front of a vehicle inspection center in Chile. In order to safeguard their activity Stringent anti-fraud system

ACTIA provides security solutions to prevent any fraud during the inspection process.

These measures ensure the reliability of the inspections at every stage.

The operator must therefore identify themselves on the line on which they are authorised to operate. Identification is biometric, using fingerprints directly on the terminal. The inspector does not have access to any measurements or real-time results. A protocol is followed according to very strict instructions from which there must be no deviation.

In addition, at each stage of the inspection, the camera will verify the vehicle by reading its number plate. This measure prevents vehicles from potentially getting mixed up during the inspection.

Lastly, data is transmitted using eToken keys. These are security tokens that provide a single-use code in order to secure the transaction. This code is generally valid for a few seconds. Using this code, a user name and a password, users can authenticate themselves to use online applications and perform fully secure signing operations such as transferring data from vehicle inspections.

Compliance with regulations in force

The VIMS can be adapted to any local regulations. Depending on the service agreement, changes and updates to inspection parameters are handled remotely by ACTIA experts on a daily basis for:

• parameter setting;
• configuration;
• or regulatory monitoring.

Hardware support is provided locally by ACTIA partners.

To make use of all the data centralised by the system A powerful, user-friendly solution

The program's interface is easy to use and intuitive. It allows the user to become familiar with the program quickly and efficiently. Data is comfortably displayed on a large scale. The information available is relevant and the system offers several display options in order to make maximum use of the data available: graphs, bar charts, pie charts, etc.

Managing the profitability of centres

The VIMS ensures that the vehicle inspection procedure is highly accurate. The inspections are conducted in a quick and orderly manner. In large centres, the time required to inspect a vehicle is sometimes set at 15 minutes per car. The inspection time is strictly observed by the operator.

Some centres using VIMS have a very high throughput. In theory, nothing will interrupt the pace, even the customer's payment is made in advance, during the vehicle intake process.

The management system makes it possible to monitor equipment performance, as this high throughput puts it under immense pressure. However, the system also monitors operator and cashier performance, along with the time spent on each operation and the number of inspections completed over the course of the day.

In addition to the inspection report for issuing or refusing the roadworthiness certificate, the VIMS generates an extremely detailed statistics report covering the centres' activity. This precise tool contributes to the performance of both equipment and staff, for maximum return on investments.

To ensure national consistency of inspections

The statistics generated by the centre management system may also be transmitted to local authorities. The authorities check that the inspections declared by the centres correspond to the vehicles that have received the roadworthiness certificate. This further analysis makes the system more reliable on a national scale.
Using this data, the authorities may also adjust their regulations according to the volume of vehicles that successfully passed or failed inspection, and therefore either toughen or relax the vehicle inspection conditions.

To customise a solution according to actual needs

The extent of these performances has already won over large vehicle inspection centres across the world. In Chile, VIMS (Vehicle inspection management system) is used at 36 centres, and it is currently being deployed in the Philippines with an overall goal of 40 super centres.

Although the system reveals its full capabilities at the largest centres, which may have up to a dozen inspection lines, it is also suited to centres with much lower throughputs.

The VIMS turnkey solution is modular and adaptable. It complies with the current regulatory requirements and inspection processes in each country. ACTIA is able to offer vehicle inspection centre management solutions which can be customised according to local needs and regulations. The solution can be found in several emerging countries that are implementing their policy for road safety and vehicle inspections; in Africa, Asia, India, etc.

Furthermore, staying true to its policy of innovation, ACTIA is constantly developing its solution and a number of projects and pilots are undergoing assessment around the world. These developments will particularly focus on the centralisation of data from several inspection centres for overall management: up to ten centres remotely. Other projects focus on integrating the predictive maintenance feature for equipment in order to pre-empt potential equipment breakages that may be detrimental to the profitability of centres.

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