Digital tachographs record activity data onto both driver digicards and the Vehicle Unit (VU). This digital data MUST BE COLLECTED by downloading the VU no later than every 90 days (by the owner or hirer) and 28 days for the digicards (by the transport undertaking, i.e. the operator who the driver is carrying out work for and this includes agency or self-employed drivers) in order to comply with EU Regulation 561/2006. The downloaded files should be stored to an office based computer.

To comply with the Working Time Directive (WTD) for mobile workers, driver digicards must also be downloaded and analysed by the company that operates PAYE for those drivers. So this could be the transport undertaking, the agency, the umbrella company or the drivers if they are self-employed or run their own limited company.

In order to make sense of this digital data a computer program such as Pitstop is required to analyse the downloads such that infringements of the EU Drivers Hours and the Working Time Directive can be detected and reported.