Application for Professional Drivers – Managing Driving and Rest Times as well as Working Hours

This application is designed for professional drivers and transport companies that want to efficiently manage driving times, breaks, and other daily activities.

Main Features:

  • Recording of driving times, breaks, rest periods, and other activities (e.g., loading/unloading, waiting).
  • Automatic calculation of daily and weekly working hours.
  • Verification of compliance with Regulation (EC) No. 561/2006 on driving and rest times.
  • Generation of detailed reports for each day, week, and month.
  • Multilingual support and a user-friendly interface.

Key rules according to European Regulation (EC) No. 561/2006:

  • Maximum daily driving time: 9 hours (extendable to 10 hours twice per week).
  • Maximum weekly driving time: 56 hours.
  • Maximum driving time in two consecutive weeks: 90 hours.
  • Break after 4 hours and 30 minutes of driving: at least 45 minutes (or split into 15 + 30 minutes).
  • Daily rest period: at least 11 hours (or 9 hours, up to 3 times per week).

The application is available at https://tacho.tvnl.eu

Installing the application on mobile devices is simple: open the Chrome browser, go to the website, and add it to your home screen. The first time you open it, the application will ask if you want to install it; accept, and the app will be immediately available on your phone.

Installation tutorial for Android and iOS

For a demo account, you can log in with the username This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and the password test11.

Attention: At the moment, the application is completely free. It is strictly forbidden to charge any fees for distributing this application.

The functionality of the application is based on two main components:

  1. Manual data entry – Easily done by marking the start and end of activities. If you also want to record GPS position, you must allow the application to access your phone's location.
  2. Use on Android devices – In this mode, the application uses the phone's GPS to monitor activity in real time, similar to a tachograph, and automatically sends the data to the database.

TachoGPS – Smart GPS Tracking for Vehicles
TachoGPS is an advanced app for monitoring drivers’ activities and vehicle movements with real-time, accurate GPS tracking. The app automatically detects whether the vehicle is moving (driving) or stationary and can distinguish between breaks and other activities.

Key Features:

  • Automatic activity logging: driving, break, other.

  • Sliding average speed to filter out false fluctuations.

  • Intelligent backup and rollback for incorrect states.

  • Local storage with automatic server synchronization.

  • Notifications and continuous background monitoring.

TachoGPS provides safety and transparency for transport companies and drivers, streamlining reporting and fleet management.

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.tvnl.tachogps

 

1️⃣ General role
The location runs in the background as a Foreground Service, monitoring GPS position, speed, and driver activity. It saves activities in real-time (driving, break, other activities) and sends them to the server or stores them locally if there is no internet. Complies with EU digital tachograph rules (e.g., 1-minute rule, switching between driving/break/other).

2️⃣ Data structures and buffers

  • Speed buffer: stores the last 5 speed values to confirm that the driver is actually driving.

  • Activity buffer: stores activity per second to apply the 1-minute rule and centralize the dominant activity.

3️⃣ Activity detection
The service tracks 4 main states:

  • "driving" – when average speed in the buffer exceeds 10 km/h

  • "other" – non-driving activity (work, handling, etc.)

  • "break" – rest period

  • "N/A" – initial state before detecting driving or other activities

State transitions:

  • Driving → Other: if speed < 10 km/h for ≥2 seconds

  • Other → Break: if duration exceeds 15 minutes

  • Other/Break → Driving: if average speed in the buffer exceeds threshold
    Critical rule: Break cannot go directly to Other; it must go through Driving

4️⃣ GPS and accuracy management
Uses FusedLocationProviderClient for high-accuracy GPS.
Ignores coordinates with lower accuracy than the set threshold (default 10 m). Saves start and end coordinates for each activity.

5️⃣ Activity saving

  • type (driving/break/other)

  • start and stop time

  • start and end coordinates

  • average speed

With internet: tries to send to server and retries failed activities.
Without internet: saves locally in database.

6️⃣ 1-minute rule
Records activity every second. Every minute, calculates the dominant activity and saves it as a summary.
Example: if within a minute the driver drove 40 seconds and rested 20 seconds → the minute is saved as driving.

7️⃣ Foreground Service and notifications
Runs as a Foreground Service with a permanent notification, according to Android requirements for background GPS. Notification shows GPS tracking is active and allows quick access to the app.

8️⃣ Other aspects
Speed buffer and low-speed timing prevent false detection of driving during short stops. All data is saved periodically and synchronized automatically when the network becomes available.