Inputs
Enforcement encounters
The traffic score is weighted across DVSA enforcement encounters — roadside checks and the outcomes recorded against them. Drivers’ hours and tachograph offences, fixed penalties and overloading all feed in.
Operator Compliance Risk Score
How tachograph infringements feed your OCRS traffic score.
Drivers’ hours and tachograph offences are one of the main inputs to the DVSA traffic score. The score is calculated over three rolling years, it is banded in colours, and it is a large part of the answer to why one operator gets pulled in and another does not.
The score every operator has and few operators watch.
OCRS is the DVSA Operator Compliance Risk Score. Every operator licence carries three of them: a roadworthiness score, a traffic score, and a combined score. Roadworthiness comes from the vehicle side — annual test results, roadside inspections, defects and prohibitions. Traffic comes from the conduct side, and drivers’ hours and tachograph offences sit squarely in it, alongside things like overloading and fixed penalties issued at the roadside.
It is worth being clear about what the score is not. It is not a rating of your paperwork, your analysis software or your intentions. It is a summary of what DVSA has actually encountered when it met your vehicles and your drivers. This page is an orientation for transport managers; check the current DVSA guidance for the definitive position.
How the traffic score is built.
Three characteristics matter more than the arithmetic: what counts, how long it counts for, and how the result is presented.
Window
Three rolling years
Data is weighted across the previous three years. Encounters age out as the window rolls forward, which is why a damaged score recovers gradually rather than the week after you fix the cause.
Output
Red, amber, green
Scores are presented in bands. Operators in DVSA Earned Recognition are shown in a separate blue band. Operators talk about their score in those colours, not in points.
Why the band decides who gets stopped.
DVSA cannot check every vehicle, so it targets. OCRS is one of the tools that decides where the resource goes. A green band means your vehicles are statistically less interesting at the roadside; a red band means the opposite, and it also makes a visit to your premises more likely.
That is the practical loop most operators miss. An infringement is not a self-contained event with a fixed cost. It creates an encounter, the encounter feeds the traffic score, the score attracts more encounters, and more encounters find more of whatever was wrong in the first place.
- An infringement at the roadside can attract a graduated fixed penalty or a prohibition
- Those outcomes are recorded and weighted into the traffic score
- A deteriorating score raises the likelihood of further stops and of a DVSA investigation
- An investigation can lead to a report to the Traffic Commissioner
- That can lead to a public inquiry, and to curtailment, suspension or revocation of the O-licence
- The transport manager’s own repute can be considered at the same hearing
Almost nobody in this chain is looking at a single day’s driving. They are looking for whether the operator had a system.
Severity bands are not the same thing as OCRS bands.
Three different classification systems get confused with one another in day-to-day conversation. They do different jobs.
MI / SI / VSI / MSI
Minor, serious, very serious and most serious infringement. The severity categories used to classify a drivers’ hours or tachograph breach, mirroring the assimilated Regulation (EU) 2016/403 categories. Serious and above are reportable to the relevant register.
Graduated fixed penalties
The roadside sanction ladder DVSA applies, graduated by the size of the breach, running through prohibition and immobilisation to a report to the Traffic Commissioner. A separate scheme with its own bands.
OCRS bands
Red, amber and green — blue for Earned Recognition members. A summary of encounter history, not a classification of any individual breach.
What an operator can actually change.
You cannot edit an OCRS score, appeal a band or offset it with good paperwork. The only lever is the rate at which your operation generates enforcement outcomes — and that is decided in the yard, weeks before anyone gets stopped.
The loop examiners look for is the same one a Traffic Commissioner asks about: did the operator spot the infringement, grade it properly, debrief the driver, record the corrective action, and then go back and check the behaviour changed. An operator who can show that loop running is in a different position from one who can only show that infringements existed.
- Download and analyse often enough that infringements are days old, not months
- Grade consistently, so a repeat MI is visible as a pattern rather than lost in volume
- Debrief promptly and keep the record of what was said
- Look for repeat rules and repeat drivers, not just totals
- Keep the evidence in a form you would be content to hand to an examiner
How TachoAssist supports that work.
The honest version of the product claim.
Infringements you can act on
Each infringement arrives with its severity, the measured values, a plain-English explanation and the legal reference, so it can be graded and discussed rather than just counted.
An internal risk view
TachoAssist calculates its own internal risk score per driver so the drivers to debrief first are visible. It is an internal indicator only — it is not OCRS, and it is not an authority rating.
Evidence in writing
Driver, fleet and vehicle reports in PDF or Excel, plus file history, give you a paper trail dated at the time the work was done.
TachoAssist has no access to OCRS.
OCRS is calculated by DVSA from its own enforcement data. TachoAssist does not read it, predict it or influence it, and automated analysis results must be reviewed by a competent person. Nothing here is legal advice or a definitive statement of compliance.
Official sources
Read it from DVSA directly.
The band definitions and the calculation change from time to time. Use the primary sources.
GOV.UK: Operator Compliance Risk ScoreWhat OCRS is, what it covers and how to check your own score
DVSA: enforcement and penaltiesGraduated fixed penalties, prohibitions and referral to a Traffic Commissioner
DVSA enforcement sanctions policyHow DVSA decides which sanction applies to a given breach
DVSA Earned Recognition: join the schemeThe scheme behind the separate blue OCRS band
Related reading.
Questions
OCRS FAQ
What is OCRS?
OCRS is the DVSA Operator Compliance Risk Score. Every operator licence carries a roadworthiness score, a traffic score and a combined score, built from DVSA’s record of enforcement encounters and presented in bands. DVSA uses it to decide where to direct roadside and premises attention.
How long do tachograph infringements affect an OCRS score?
OCRS is calculated over a three-year rolling window. Encounters drop out of the calculation as they age past three years, which is why a score improves slowly rather than immediately after the underlying problem is fixed.
Do infringements found by my own analysis software appear on my OCRS?
No. OCRS is built from DVSA’s own enforcement encounters, not from an operator’s in-house analysis. Finding and dealing with an infringement yourself keeps it out of the score; leaving the behaviour uncorrected is what eventually produces the encounter that does count.
Can TachoAssist tell me my OCRS band?
No. OCRS belongs to DVSA and is calculated from its own enforcement data. TachoAssist has no access to it and does not predict it. You can check your own score through the OCRS service on GOV.UK.