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SGS United Kingdom Black Cab inspection program

SGS UK’s contract to inspect and license London’s 40,000 Private Hire Vehicles commenced in April 2004 and remains in force until 2011 with an option for the client to extend the contract for 2 years. This operation has been highly successful with inspection volumes growing from 34,000 inspections in year 1 to 46,000 inspections in year 3. Results from a recent independent customer satisfaction survey indicated a 92% satisfaction rate from users of the service. The contract is also governed by 10 Key Performance Indicators which have been achieved or exceeded each month since the “go live” date in 2004.

Transport for London’s (TfL) has an obligation to conduct its activities in a defined “best value” model and decided to conduct a “Best Value Review” of its in-house Black Cab licensing operations and the existing SGS PHV operation model during 2005-2006. This review included visiting the SGS Ireland car testing operations in the Republic of Ireland.

The existing contract with SGS had an option for TfL to include the Black Cab operations at a future date. TfL decided to exercise this option to outsource the inspection and licensing of London's Black Cabs to SGS with an operational go live date of April 2007. The extension to the contract was to inspect and license London’s Black Cabs incorporating a full mechanical inspection, a mid-year safety inspection, an inspection to assess the suitability for use as a public service vehicle, a vehicle identification process and a license issuance process. The booking and call centre operations were to mirror the PHV process using the call centre located in SGS Ireland.

A total of 22,000 initial full mechanical inspections, 11,000 retests of initial inspections coupled with the 22,000 mid-year inspection and approximately 8,000 retests of mid-year inspections, necessitated the development of an operation capable of dealing with up to 65,000 vehicle appearances per annum.

SGS set up 3 new inspection facilities in the London Area with a lane layout and design similar to the SGS National Car Test facilities in Ireland.

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The start-up programme had to successfully deal with a number of difficult areas including TUPE, HR considerations, a difficult local planning process, changes to UK building regulations, a large fire close to one of the new inspection facilities, a complex extension to the Vehicle Inspection Management IT program and a MAHA equipment installation program.

A total of 14 inspectors were recruited for the initial start-up phase. The eventual number of staff to be involved in the operations will be 30 including management, administration and inspection teams.

The operation went live on 2^nd of April 2007 with some initial complications caused by an unscheduled, unforeseen backlog of 2,000 inspections left over from the previous PCO in-house inspection process. Adjustments to the staffing levels, scheduling and call centre operations were made to incorporate these additional volumes. SGS call centre and inspection teams had to put in an excellent performance to successfully deal with the very busy start up period and significantly after the first four months of operations we are now running ahead of schedule with same day full and retest slots available where necessary. The director of the PCO has written to SGS to congratulate teams for the manner in which the service was introduced.

A total of over 9,000 full mechanical inspections have been carried out with approximately 4,400 retests conducted in the four months since the start up of operations.

Plans are now very advanced for the introduction of the six monthly mid-year safety inspections due to commence on the 1^st of October 2007.