By Andy McCue, 7 April 2006 15:10
Garages and testing stations are equipped with a printer, PC, smart card reader and modem free of charge (above is a screenshot from a garage testing station PC). Vosa pays SBS £1.09 for every pass carried out using the MOT system.
SBS established two mainframes in Blackpool which hold the central MOT database of vehicle information, test results and details of authorised examiners and testers. The garages and Vosa are connected to this database.
Police can use the system to check MOT certificates, and the system will link in with automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) databases which can check against a list of vehicles without MOT certificates in future.
The MOT computerisation project aims to take a million illegal and dangerous cars off the UK's roads and provide greater protection for motorists and consumers.
Photo credit: Siemens Business Services
Comments
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1. Simon
Hmm, where is this fictitious MoT station ? It's got kit there than isn't in any station I've used, and the captions seem to suggest that some of it is supplied FoC - what gets supplied isn't the stuff that's in the photos !
2. anonymous
So drivers with illegal cars will be queuing round the block to visit this garage?
Is it not just yet more technology that is going to solve all our crime problems and make the roads a safer place?
I think it’s simply just another money spinner for a tech company.
You have to remember that PFI really stands for ‘Profitable Financial Initiative’ or more simply Pretty F… Idiotic
3. anonymous
The system does work, but is terribly clunky to use. It would barely make beta status in the commercial world. And as for the equipment - 14.4 modem and dot matrix printer are the highlights...
4. anonymous
The equipment looks similar that already in use in government run test centres in Northern Ireland, where garages are only allowed to prepare vehicles, which have then to be taken to official test centres - not operated by the garages. http://www.dvtani.gov.uk/vehicletesting/home.asp Tests have to be booked 3 to 4 weeks in advance and cost £30.50 for a private car, and if anything fails the retest fee is £18.50. It's a great money-spinner for Government, but then it cost millions to set it all up.
5. anonymous
It is horrible to use - especially given the degree of computer literacy.
Still it provided a useful dumping ground for a load of unsaleable siemens kit.
6. anonymous
Is it April first again?
Tech averse MOT testers suddenly get online with groovy new state of the art equipment? Not in my part of the universe.
I have just visited half a dozen test centres around Brixton (don't ask!) and none of them have anything like the shiny new kit in the photos.
Most of it looks similar to what was being used 10 years ago