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How the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005 apply to HGV and PSV mobile workers: the 48-hour average, 60-hour cap, night limit and breaks.
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The Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005 limit the total working time of mobile workers in HGV and PSV operations, not just the time they spend driving. A mobile worker must not work more than an average of 48 hours a week over the reference period, must never exceed 60 hours in any single week, and is limited to 10 hours’ working time in any 24-hour period if any of that time is night work.
These rules run alongside the assimilated (formerly retained EU) drivers’ hours rules, not instead of them. Both apply at the same time, and you must meet whichever is stricter at any given moment. The working time rules are about how long someone works in total; the drivers’ hours rules are about driving and the breaks and rest that go with it.
The core figures:
The 2005 Regulations apply to mobile workers in operations governed by the assimilated or AETR drivers’ hours rules. In practice that means the drivers and travelling crew of goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes, and passenger vehicles with nine or more seats, that are required to use a tachograph.
A mobile worker is any member of the travelling staff, including trainees and apprentices, in the service of an undertaking that operates road transport services for goods or passengers, whether for hire or reward or on its own account.
That is broader than “the driver”. It also captures other travelling crew such as a driver’s mate or a conductor. Agency drivers are covered, and where an agency or employment business pays the worker, the agency must keep the working time records.
Someone who only occasionally drives in-scope vehicles may fall outside the 2005 Regulations as an occasional mobile worker. A mobile worker is exempt if they work:
Occasional mobile workers are instead covered by the Working Time Regulations 1998. A practical consequence is that unlike full mobile workers, they can sign an individual opt-out from the 48-hour average.
Self-employed drivers were brought within the 2005 Regulations in Great Britain on 11 May 2012 by the Road Transport (Working Time) (Amendment) Regulations 2012. They are responsible for keeping their own working time records for two years and producing them for inspection.
The legal definition of a self-employed driver is narrow and specific. It is not the same as being self-employed for tax purposes, and “self-employed” on an invoice does not settle the question. It turns on transporting goods or passengers as your main occupation for hire or reward, being genuinely free to organise your own work, having income that depends on profits, and being free to have commercial relations with several customers. The definition is in regulation 2 of the 2005 Regulations.
One nuance applies only to self-employed drivers: general administrative work that is not directly linked to the specific transport operation under way is excluded from their working time. Paperwork and checks tied to a particular journey still count.
Drivers operating under the GB domestic drivers’ hours rules are not covered by the 2005 Regulations. They are subject to four provisions of the 1998 Regulations instead, including a 48-hour average that does allow an individual opt-out. That is a different regime with different record-keeping, and is outside the scope of this guide.
Working time is the time from the start to the end of work during which a mobile worker is at the workstation. This can include the vehicle, the operator’s premises or another place where transport activities are carried out - at the employer’s disposal and carrying out their duties. It is defined in regulation 2 and is much wider than driving. It includes:
Three things sit outside working time: breaks, rest periods, and periods of availability. Travel between home and your normal place of work does not count either. The exclusion of breaks, rests and availability is set out in regulation 5.
A period of availability is waiting time whose reasonably foreseeable duration is known in advance. The worker is not at their workstation and not working, but must be available to start or resume work. The condition that the duration is known beforehand comes from regulation 6. Examples that may be a POA include:
Do not treat POA as a convenient bucket for awkward time. Stopping and starting in congestion, edging forward in a loading queue, or any wait whose duration is not known in advance is normally working time, not a POA. The foreseeability test is the whole point: no known duration, no POA.
And a POA is not a break. It does not count towards working time, but it also does not discharge a break or rest requirement under either the working time or the drivers’ hours rules. Any waiting time relied on as a break must be a genuine interruption of work, normally at least 15 minutes, and clearly identifiable in the records.
A mobile worker’s working time must not exceed an average of 48 hours a week across the reference period. Averaging is the point: a 55-hour week is fine in itself, provided the weeks around it bring the average back to 48 or below.
The reference period is normally 17 weeks. It can be extended to 26 weeks where a collective or workforce agreement allows it. Current DVSA guidance is explicit that, for mobile workers under the 2005 Regulations, the reference period can only be 17 or 26 weeks. There is no other option. The averaging itself is set by regulation 4. Operators should be able to show which period they use.
Annual leave and sickness do not distort the average. For statutory annual leave, sick leave and maternity, paternity, adoption or parental leave, the regulations add excluded hours back into the calculation - 8 hours for a whole day and 48 hours for a whole week - so a driver who is off is neither penalised nor able to mask a heavy period by being absent.
Sitting on top of the average is an absolute ceiling of 60 hours in any single week, and this includes overtime. It applies no matter how low your average is. You cannot “bank” quiet weeks and then work an 80-hour week to use them up - 60 hours is the hard limit for any one week, full stop.
Mind how a “week” is defined. For these rules a week runs from midnight between Sunday and Monday to the following midnight - 00:00 Monday to 24:00 Sunday. That matters where operations run through the weekend, or where planners think in payroll weeks rather than the legal week, because a shift pattern that looks fine on a payroll week can breach the cap on the legal one.
Unlike most workers under the 1998 Regulations, a mobile worker cannot sign away the 48-hour average. There is no individual opt-out. An agreement that purports to let a driver opt out is not valid, and relying on one leaves the operator exposed to enforcement action and to scrutiny of the operator’s licence.
If a mobile worker performs any night work, their working time must not exceed 10 hours in any 24-hour period. The limit is in regulation 9. Night time is defined as:
Note how this works. The 10-hour cap is not a limit on night hours alone. It caps total working time in the 24-hour period as soon as the worker does any work during the night window.
The 10-hour night limit is not fixed. It can be exceeded where a collective or workforce agreement permits. This is a common misunderstanding: operators sometimes treat 10 hours as immovable, while others assume night work is unrestricted - both are wrong. The default is 10 hours, and a valid agreement is what changes it. The 48-hour average and 60-hour cap still apply regardless.
Under regulation 7, a mobile worker must not work more than 6 consecutive hours without a break. How much break is then required depends on the total length of the working day:
People often talk about “the 6 and 9 hour rule” and “the 9 hour rule” as if they were two different requirements. They are not. There is a single break requirement with two bands: 30 minutes once you pass 6 hours of working time, rising to 45 minutes once you pass 9. Cross into the higher band and the higher figure applies - you do not add the two together.
In practice: 8 hours of working time needs at least 30 minutes of qualifying break; 10 hours needs at least 45 minutes. In both cases the worker must still not work more than 6 consecutive hours without a break.
This is where the two regimes are most often confused. The drivers’ hours rules require a 45-minute break after 4.5 hours of driving. The working time rules require a break based on total working time, as set out above. They are triggered by different things and measured against different totals.
The relationship between them works like this:
The trap to avoid: assuming the two are interchangeable. A properly taken driving break can satisfy a working time break, but a working time break does not automatically satisfy the drivers’ hours requirement, and the reverse is not guaranteed either. For the full detail of the 45-minute driving break and how it can be split, see the Drivers’ Hours guide.
Working time records must be kept for two years after the end of the period they relate to, and the employer must request and include any time a worker has done for another employer. These duties are in regulation 11. The duty applies whether or not the operation works anywhere near the 48-hour average. You cannot decline to keep records simply because you are confident you are within the limits.
In short:
Tachograph data is central evidence, but it is not the whole picture. It can serve as a working time record only if the mode entries are accurate and the record captures the work actually done. Warehouse or yard work before driving still needs to be recorded. It does not by itself prove that other duties were logged properly or that the average across a 17 or 26-week reference period was held, which is why working time monitoring sits on top of, not inside, raw tachograph downloads.
A practical evidence pack for a reference period should include:
It is worth restating the headline point, because it is the source of most errors: the working time rules and the drivers’ hours rules are two separate regimes that apply at the same time. One governs total working time; the other governs driving and the rest that surrounds it. Compliance with one does not mean compliance with the other.
A driver can be perfectly within the drivers’ hours rules on driving and breaks, and still be in breach of the working time rules - most often on the 48-hour average, because loading, waiting, paperwork and other work all count and quietly push the total up. The drivers’ hours limits themselves are not unpacked here; see the Drivers’ Hours guide for those.
The errors that come up most often in practice:
A workable system does not need to be complicated, but it does need to be consistent, built into normal transport administration rather than left for an audit or investigation:
Where tachograph analysis is done properly, working time compliance becomes far easier to manage: it surfaces working time, POA, breaks, night work and the patterns that need intervention while there is still time to act. That analysis - turning tachograph and working time data into clear infringement reporting - is the work Tacho Agent carries out for operators who want it taken off the transport office’s desk.
This article is provided for general guidance only and reflects our understanding of the rules as they apply in Great Britain as at the date shown on this page. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice tailored to your specific operation.
Drivers' hours, tachograph, working time and operator licensing rules are detailed and change over time, and some requirements differ in Northern Ireland and for international journeys. Always check the current guidance on GOV.UK and the underlying legislation on legislation.gov.uk, and consult your transport manager or a qualified compliance professional before acting.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Tacho Agent Ltd accepts no liability for any loss arising from action taken, or not taken, in reliance on this article. Nothing here excludes or limits any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence or for fraud. Use of this article is also governed by our Terms of Use.
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