Tender for Driving Tests

Victor

http://www.etenders.gov.ie/search/search_show.aspx?ID=JUN040259

Carry out 40,000 driving tests of learner drivers, in respect of Driving Licence Category B, in the Republic of Ireland on behalf of the Department of Transport in accordance with standards laid down by the Department.

I take that this is the full test, not the theory test?

Nuttzz

correct

murphaph

The unions won't like this! Nice one. The whole kit and caboodle of training & testing is being overhauled and the consultants did recommend clearing the backlog asap before reforms begin in earnest.

I wonder who on earth would be in a position to test 40,000 drivers in 18 months. Some sort of consortium formed just to meet this tender?

seamus

Surprisingly you wouldn't need that many testers. 30 people should easily be able to cover 40,000 tests in 18 months. Assume 6 tests per tester, per day. So that's 30 tests per tester per week, or 120 per month, and 2160 over 18 months. Times 30 = ~60,000 tests.

murphaph

s'pose, but who'd have 30 people who were qualified to test (whatever that means) on hand? I assume one or more of the driving schools will tender.

Capt'n Midnight

The current system hasn't kept pace with the numbers applying so at best all it could do is stop the queue growing.

Back in '79 they cleared much of the queue by handing out 30,000 licenses without tests http://www.dir.ie/news/news7.htm.

26 years later and they offer a tender for 40,000 tests in 18 months. That's [strike]15[/strike] 30 years to clear the backlog, assuming the current system can cater for all the new learners over the years and the pass rate doesn't drop even further [/edit]

I heard that you need about 30 hours of proper lessons to learn to drive. So a full time instructor should average one person ready to be tested per week.

it can only be estimated that the Republic of Ireland has about between 900 and 1,200 full time driving instructors.

Capt'n Midnight

seamus wrote:

Surprisingly you wouldn't need that many testers. 30 people should easily be able to cover 40,000 tests in 18 months. Assume 6 tests per tester, per day. So that's 30 tests per tester per week, or 120 per month, and 2160 over 18 months. Times 30 = ~60,000 tests.

Ta, just noticed a flaw there - the pass rate is only 50% so only 20,000 would get licenses

http://www.irishtrucker.com/news/2005/july/0507056.asp - the number who have applied for a test is 124,000 . But since pass rates are 50% it would actually take about 30 years to test all 400,000 people who have provisional licenses (which is coincidentally close to the 26 years it took to build up the queue)

Screw the unions , the number of people who die every year is far, far higher than the number of testers, I call that a safety issue. Also it's not like they would be out of work any time soon if the guards enforced the ban on unaccompanied drivers or learners on motorways maybe the 531 new traffic cops will do that http://www.irishtrucker.com/news/2005/may/0905054.asp

Ireland’s 122 driving testers shared a E503,000 mileage allowance in 2004, according to figures released by the Department of Transport.
The testers are also paid for over time, which is bottomless because of the chronic delays in the system.

Seth Brundle

this was discussed before (here) when the idea was first announced and I asked the following which I don't think have yet been addressed by the DoE:-

me wrote:

There are other issues to be looked at:
* who tests the new testers to the departments 'standards'?
* given the huge variance in pass/failure rates nationally, what will be done to normalise the testers?
* the private testers will he retained for about 2 years (from what I heard). Once this two year period is completed and the waiting lists reduced, assuming the number of testers is the same, what is going to stop the waiting lists rising again?
* if a productivity based bonus scheme is in operation, surely this means that testers will be tempted to cut the length of a test - not very safety orientated IMO
* when are they going to introduce motorway testing or at least bring in something similar to NI where newbies cannot drive over 50mph and cannot use a motorway for 1 year?
* when are they going to sort out the licence fiasco whereby someone can fail an infinite amount of times during their life & still drive home