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Drivers' Working Hours

The drivers' working hours are a set of regulations that define break periods and driving/travel time limits for vehicle drivers. The purpose of a driving time regulation law is to improve road safety and ensure good working conditions of drivers.

If no driver object with a working hours preset is passed with the request, working hours will be unlimited.

Which restrictions apply

There may not be just a single regulation but many regulations that the driver has to abide by. For instance, one regulation may deal with working hours for all workers, and another regulation may deal with working hours for drivers of heavy vehicles only. Since drivers of heavy vehicles are also workers, both regulations apply to them.

We distinguish three types of times to which a restriction may apply.

  • Driving time: includes the time behind the wheel, time on combined transports are not included.
  • Working time: includes driving time, service time unless used for recreation, and waiting time if lower than working time threshold.
  • Travel time: the entire time also including, break, waiting time, and the daily rest.

Scheduling breaks and rests

Usually, breaks and rests are scheduled when the driver is required to take a break or a rest. Opening intervals of waypoints are taken into account so that breaks may be scheduled at other points in time in order not to miss an opening interval.

Both service times and times on combined transports can be used for recreation when enabling the corresponding parameters useServiceTimeForRecreation and useTimeOnCombinedTransportForRecreation. In that case breaks and rests will be scheduled during service or when on a combined transport, remaining times will be marked as waiting times. See the Waypoints concept for additional information.

Already conducted work of the driver

A driver might already have some accumulated driving/working hours before the start of the route. In this case, the information on already conducted work is provided by the Work Logbook. These values will be taken into account when scheduling breaks and daily rests according to the break and daily rest rules. The conducted work of the driver might be reset if driver had time to rest before start of the route. In other words, if the difference of the start time of the route and the lastTimeTheDriverWorked is more than the given daily rest time.

Naturally, accumulated working and travel time are greater than or equal to the corresponding accumulated driving time. In the same way, the driving time since the last daily rest is always greater than or equal to the corresponding accumulated time since the last break. Therefore for example, if accumulatedDrivingTimeSinceLastBreak is given but not the accumulatedDrivingTimeSinceLastDailyRest the latter is assumed to be equal to the former.

"workLogbook":{
    "lastTimeTheDriverWorked": "2020-01-31T20:00:00",
    "accumulatedDrivingTimeSinceLastBreak": 14400,
    "accumulatedDrivingTimeSinceLastDailyRest": 27000
}

Available presets

For single day presets no schedule events of type DAILY_REST will be returned. Only VIOLATION_EVENTS will be returned when the maximum working time or maximum driving time is exceeded.

PresetDescription
EU_DRIVING_TIME_REGULATION_FOR_SINGLE_DAY
  • Based on Regulation (EC) 561/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
  • Break time: 45 minutes
  • Maximum driving time between breaks: 4.5 hours
  • Maximum driving time: 9 hours
  • Maximum travel time: 13 hours
  • Daily rest time: 11 hours
EU_DRIVING_TIME_REGULATION_FOR_LONG_SINGLE_DAY
  • As an exception to EU_DRIVING_TIME_REGULATION_FOR_SINGLE_DAY, "Maximum driving time" may be extended to 10 hours twice a week, and "Daily rest time" reduced to 9 hours.
  • Break time: 45 minutes
  • Maximum driving time between breaks: 4.5 hours
  • Maximum driving time: 10 hours
  • Maximum travel time: 15 hours
  • Daily rest time: 9 hours
EU_WORKING_TIME_DIRECTIVE_FOR_SINGLE_DAY
  • Based on Directive 2002/15/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council "on the organisation of the working time of persons performing mobile road transport activities".
  • Break time: 30 minutes
  • Maximum working time between breaks: 6 hours
  • Working time threshold: 15 minutes
  • Maximum travel time: 9.5 hours
  • Daily rest time: 11 hours
EU_WORKING_TIME_DIRECTIVES_FOR_LONG_SINGLE_DAY
  • Based on Directive 2003/88/EC and 2002/15/EC if total working hours is more than 9 hours, a break must be at least 45 minutes long.
  • Break time: 45 minutes
  • Maximum working time between breaks: 6 hours
  • Working time threshold: 15 minutes
  • Maximum travel time: 10.75 hours
  • Daily rest time: 11 hours
EU_DRIVING_TIME_REGULATION_FOR_MULTIPLE_DAYS
  • Based on Regulation (EC) 561/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
  • Break time: 45 minutes
  • Maximum driving time between breaks: 4.5 hours
  • Daily rest time: 11 hours
  • Maximum driving time between daily rests: 9 hours
  • Maximum travel time between daily rests: 13 hours
EU_DRIVING_TIME_REGULATION_FOR_TEAM_AND_MULTIPLE_DAYS
  • When two drivers form a team, they can take turns. In contrast to EU_DRIVING_TIME_REGULATION_FOR_MULTIPLE_DAYS, no breaks are scheduled and the daily rest time limits are raised.
  • Daily rest time: 9 hours
  • Maximum driving time between daily rests: 18 hours
  • Maximum travel time between daily rests: 21 hours
US_HOURS_OF_SERVICE_REGULATIONS_FOR_SINGLE_DAY
  • Based on Hours of Service (HOS) of Drivers as issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
  • Break time: 30 minutes
  • Maximum driving time between breaks: 8 hours
  • Maximum driving time: 11 hours
  • Maximum travel time: 14 hours
  • Daily rest time: 10 hours
US_HOURS_OF_SERVICE_REGULATIONS_FOR_SHORT_HAUL_AND_SINGLE_DAY
  • Based on Hours of Service (HOS) of Drivers as issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). It is assumed that the short-haul exception does apply so breaks are not scheduled.
  • Maximum driving time: 11 hours
  • Maximum travel time: 14 hours
  • Daily rest time: 10 hours
US_HOURS_OF_SERVICE_REGULATIONS_FOR_MULTIPLE_DAYS
  • Based on Hours of Service (HOS) of Drivers as issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
  • Break time: 30 minutes
  • Maximum driving time between breaks: 8 hours
  • Daily rest time: 10 hours
  • Maximum driving time between daily rests: 11 hours
  • Maximum travel time between daily rests: 14 hours

 

Try it in the Drivers Working Hours code sample.