Fleet management and time tracking for transport companies: the rules and the software

A transport company runs on two different clocks that almost never agree: the vehicle’s, which is kept by the tachograph and watched by Spain’s Transport Inspectorate (Inspección de Transporte), and the worker’s, which is set by the working day and watched by the Labour Inspectorate (Inspección de Trabajo). Fleet management and time tracking in transport are about making those two clocks, plus the duty schedule that plans the operation, tell the same story. When each one lives in a separate system, rosters are drawn up by hand, the variable pay items for payroll are calculated late and the two inspectorates find discrepancies. This guide explains which rules apply, what an integrated fleet and staff system must do and how it is implemented at a passenger or freight operator.

The rules that govern time in transport

Driving and rest times: Regulation 561/2006

Regulation (EC) 561/2006 sets the limits for the driver: a maximum of nine hours’ driving a day, which can be extended to ten twice a week; 56 hours a week and 90 in any two consecutive weeks; a break of at least 45 minutes after four and a half hours’ driving; a daily rest period of eleven hours, which can be reduced to nine up to three times between two weekly rest periods; and a weekly rest period of 45 hours, which can be reduced subject to compensation. It applies to goods transport in vehicles of more than 3.5 tonnes and to passenger transport in vehicles with more than nine seats, with an exclusion that matters for urban transport: regular passenger services whose route does not exceed 50 kilometres fall outside the regulation and are governed by Spanish employment law and by their collective agreement.

The tachograph: Regulation (EU) 165/2014

The tachograph records driving, other work, availability and rest. The data on the driver card must be downloaded at least every 28 days and the data in the vehicle unit at least every 90, and kept for one year, available to the inspectorate. The smart tachograph version 2 has been mandatory in new vehicles since August 2023, with a staggered replacement timetable for international transport between 2024 and 2025. For the company, the practical consequence is that there is an official, structured source of data on the driver’s time, which the management system must take in, not re-create.

Working time of mobile workers: Royal Decree 1561/1995

Directive 2002/15/EC, incorporated into Royal Decree 1561/1995 on special working-time arrangements (Real Decreto 1561/1995) by Royal Decrees 902/2007 and 1635/2011 (Reales Decretos 902/2007 y 1635/2011), governs the working time of all travelling staff in a road transport company: drivers, drivers’ mates, conductors and auxiliary on-board staff. It introduces a distinction that no generic clocking system understands: actual working time (tiempo de trabajo efectivo), which counts towards working hours, and presence time (tiempo de presencia), when the worker is at the company’s disposal without performing actual work (waiting, standing by, breakdowns, accompanying the vehicle on a ferry or train); presence time is paid as the collective agreement provides and may not exceed an average of twenty hours a week over a month. Article 10 bis of the royal decree sets maximum working time for mobile workers at an average of 48 hours a week over four months, with a ceiling of 60 hours in any one week, and obliges the employer to keep and retain a record of the working time of each mobile worker, even where the worker works for more than one company.

Working time records and the collective agreement

Article 34.9 of the Workers’ Statute (Estatuto de los Trabajadores), introduced by Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 (Real Decreto-ley 8/2019), requires the working time of the entire workforce to be recorded daily and the record to be kept for four years. The Ministry of Labour’s 2019 guide defers to the specific rules for mobile workers, so the record under Article 10 bis serves that purpose for them, while non-mobile staff (workshops, depots, stations, offices, passenger services) come under the general regime. On top of that come the sector-wide collective agreements for freight and for passenger transport and the large operators’ own agreements, which set night-work, public-holiday and split-shift allowances, subsistence payments and rest periods under rules of their own; and the royal decree on digital working time records that the Spanish Government is putting through for the private sector, which at the time of writing (15 September 2026) has still not been published in the BOE (Boletín Oficial del Estado, the official state gazette) and which will require records that are tamper-proof and remotely accessible to the Labour Inspectorate.

What an integrated fleet and staff system must do

The problem is not a lack of data but that the data is scattered: the tachograph holds the driving time, the AVL (automatic vehicle location) system – the SAE, or Sistema de Ayuda a la Explotación, of Spanish operators – holds the service actually run, the duty schedule holds what was planned, and payroll waits until the end of the month for the variable pay items. An integrated system must cover:

Operations planning

• Duty schedules by route, shift and day type, with reliefs, breaks, spare and standby duties, and with the rules of the collective agreement built into the scheduling engine.
• Driver–vehicle–service allocation with a check on qualifications: driving licence, certificate of professional competence (the driver CPC, known in Spain as the CAP), ADR for dangerous goods, tachograph card, training.

Recording working time

• Clocking in by mobile workers from the in-vehicle app or from the depot terminal, with the ability to work without coverage and synchronise later.
• Automatic classification of each period as actual work, presence time, break or rest on the basis of the planned service, the AVL system and the tachograph, with the supervisor reviewing only the exceptions.
• Driver cards and vehicle units downloaded and archived on time, with an alert before the 28 and the 90 days are up.

Monitoring limits and alerts

• The limits in Regulation 561/2006 and in Article 10 bis calculated continuously, with a warning to the driver and the scheduler before the infringement, not after it.
• Expiry dates for licences, the driver CPC, the ITV (Spain’s periodic roadworthiness test), tachograph calibration (every two years) and preventive maintenance by kilometres or hours.

Payroll and variable pay

• Automatic calculation of hours actually worked, presence time, overtime, night work, public holidays, subsistence payments and the allowances in the collective agreement, exported to the payroll software or to the external payroll agency (gestoría) without anything having to be keyed in again.

Traceability and reports

• A tamper-proof record with time-stamping and a trail of every correction, exportable for the Labour Inspectorate and for the Transport Inspectorate with the information each one requires.
• If the operator is publicly owned or holds a concession from a public authority, the system processes employees’ data and underpins a legal obligation: it must be categorised under the National Security Framework (Esquema Nacional de Seguridad, ENS) like any other of the public body’s systems. We explain this in the guide on time tracking in public administration.

Why a generic product falls short

Time tracking software for SMEs copes well with clocking in at an office or a workshop. In transport it fails on three counts: it does not distinguish presence time from actual work, it does not take in the tachograph or the AVL system, and it knows nothing about the collective agreement. The result is that the scheduler goes on building the duty schedule in a spreadsheet and the HR department recalculates the variable pay items by hand every month. That is why mid-sized and large operators end up with a custom development that starts from their collective agreement, their routes and their operational systems, instead of adapting the operation to the product.

CEDESA’s experience in transport and mobility

CEDESA has spent years developing software for public transport operators and infrastructure: systems that run 24 hours a day, with thousands of simultaneous users, integrated with turnstiles, ticket validators and information displays, and subject to complex sector-wide collective agreements. Three projects sum up that work:

• TITSA (Transportes Interurbanos de Tenerife): an internal resource management platform for the entire bus fleet and the staff of the island’s operator.
• Metro Bilbao: development and web service for real-time mobile positioning on the metro network.
• Puertos de les Illes Balears: a human resources and internal organisation management platform for the Balearic Islands’ port authority.

Our time tracking and HR systems include digital clocking with geolocation, shift and roster management, attendance control and communication with the General Treasury of Social Security (Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social), and they are developed under CEDESA’s ENS, ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications. The code belongs to the client, and the team that develops it is the one that maintains it, which matters more in an operational system that cannot stop than in any other.

How to implement it at an operator

1. An inventory of the rules. The collective agreement or agreements that apply, the types of service, the categories of mobile and non-mobile staff, and which working-time rules affect each group (561/2006, Article 10 bis, the general regime).
2. A map of the systems. Tachographs and download software, the AVL system, the ticketing and validation system, payroll, maintenance. What data each one provides and by what route.
3. A single data model. Planned service, service actually run and recorded time, all built on the same entities: driver, vehicle, route, shift. This is the decision that avoids duplicating information.
4. A rules engine. Statutory limits and collective agreement rules that are configurable and versioned, so that a change in the agreement is a matter of configuration, not of development.
5. A pilot by depot or by route. Over a full payroll cycle, check the variable pay items calculated by the system against those the HR department used to calculate by hand.
6. Roll-out and integration with payroll. Automatic month-end close, reports for both inspectorates and brief training for schedulers, supervisors and drivers.

Frequently asked questions about fleet management and time tracking in transport

Does the tachograph count as a working time record?

It serves as a source of data on the driver’s time, but on its own it is no substitute for the working time record required by Article 10 bis of Royal Decree 1561/1995: each period has to be classified as actual work or presence time, work away from the vehicle has to be included and the record has to be kept. A management system must integrate the tachograph data and complete it, not copy it out by hand.

What is the difference between actual working time and presence time?

Actual working time is the time that counts towards working hours: driving, loading and unloading, maintenance, assisting passengers and administrative work. Presence time is the time during which the worker is at the company’s disposal without performing actual work, such as waiting, breakdowns or accompanying the vehicle on a ferry. Royal Decree 1561/1995 limits it to an average of twenty hours a week over a month and leaves its pay to the collective agreement.

Is urban transport subject to Regulation 561/2006?

Regular passenger services with a route of no more than 50 kilometres are excluded from the regulation. Those operators remain subject to Royal Decree 1561/1995, to the Workers’ Statute and to their collective agreement, which usually sets its own rules on rest periods, reliefs and working hours.

How often does tachograph data have to be downloaded?

The driver card at least every 28 days and the vehicle unit at least every 90 days, with the data kept for one year, available to the inspectorate. A management system must give a warning before each deadline runs out and archive the downloads in a traceable way.

Is time tracking software for SMEs any use in a transport company?

For office, workshop or station staff, yes. For mobile staff it falls short: it does not distinguish presence time, it does not integrate the tachograph or the AVL system and it does not build in the collective agreement. Once the mobile workforce exceeds a few dozen drivers, the cost of recalculating variable pay by hand every month is greater than that of an integrated system.

Conclusion

Fleet management and time tracking in transport companies only work when the duty schedule, the tachograph, the AVL system and the working time record share a single data model and a single rules engine. That is what makes it possible to comply at once with Regulation 561/2006, with Royal Decree 1561/1995 and with the working time record obligation, to calculate the variable pay items for payroll without rework and to answer both inspectorates with the same data. If you are an operator looking to take that step, at CEDESA we have done it for TITSA, Metro Bilbao and Puertos de les Illes Balears; tell us about your project via our contact page.