The company SGS Ireland has won the contract to provide at least 100,000 additional driving tests. David Labanyireports
The provider of the National Car Test, SGS Ireland, has won the contract to provide a minimum of 100,000 driving tests.
It is understood the contract with the Road Safety Authority (RSA) will be signed within days. This contract will be flexible and allows the RSA to increase the number of tests purchased from the private sector in batches of 10,000 to meet demand from the minimum of 100,000, with no upper ceiling.
SGS Ireland is understood to have beaten off competition from one other bidder to win the tender. The company already has a contract to provide 45,000 driving tests and by the middle of April had completed almost 22,000 of these.
Noel Brett, chief executive of the RSA, said this second tranche of privatised driving tests would be "targeted at the candidates waiting longest".
Unlike the current SGS driver testing centres which are concentrated in the east of the country, under the new contract, privatised driving tests offered will now be "in provincial centres and places where we don't have a presence now," he said.
While the location of new testing centres has yet to be finalised it is understood they will use existing NCT centres.
Mr Brett said he expects the winner of the contract to be in a position to start testing in the second-half of the year and to complete up to half of the 100,000 tests this year.
"Realistically it is going to take whoever wins this contract some time to gear up, recruit and train, but we would hope they are in a position to start testing later this year," Mr Brett said.
He also dismissed a suggestion that it was easier to pass the SGS driving test. The pass rate for candidates sitting a driving test with RSA driver testers is 52.4 per cent. Among the first 22,000 drivers who have had a test with SGS Ireland the pass rate is 58.8 per cent.
"Statistically, the number of private tests to date is not high enough to give us a great statistical relevance. And they are only doing it across 11 very particular centres.
"Also, the candidates that SGS get are highly motivated and ready for their test because they have got a letter from us saying do you want to be offered a test with SGS immediately, or do you want to wait for one with us. Anyone who wants to avoid a test or who is not prepared won't opt for the SGS test."
Mr Brett said there was a system in place to monitor both testing systems.
"Generally when we look at pass/fail rates the kind of reasons are socio-economic factors such as access to a vehicle, the quality of tuition people have, if any, and the levels of preparedness."
If the second privatised driving test contract manages to deliver 50,000 additional tests this year as expected, Mr Brett estimates that 286,000 people will face a driving test this year.
At this level the supply of tests will just about meet demand, with RSA studies suggesting that there will be 250,000 applications for a driving test this year.
As of April 10th the average waiting time for a driving test nationally was 28 weeks and there were 139,000 people awaiting a test with either the RSA or SGS, according to the RSA. Some of the longest waiting times are now outside the greater Dublin area. Drivers in Clonmel face the longest delay for a test with a 42 week average wait, followed by those on the Nenagh waiting lists which stands at 40 weeks. Some 3,800 drivers in the Minister for Transport's constituency of Waterford face a wait of 38 weeks, with 1,800 drivers in Mullingar required to wait for a similar time.
No centre has the eight to 10 week waiting time that Mr Cullen said he wanted as the norm by the middle of this year. Provisional drivers in Cavan, with a wait of 11 weeks, have the shortest time on the waiting list.
The contract for a second round of outsourcing is central to a €10 million initiative to try and reduce the waiting times to no more than two months, and was part of a special allocation in the last Budget.
Once the waiting time for a test reaches this level the RSA is keen to start to reform the driver training system. There were 139,000 people awaiting a driving test as of April 10th.
The SGS has the 10-year contract to run the National Car Testing service, which expires in 2009. It now employs 476 staff at 48 locations in Ireland. SGS has inspection, verification and testing operations worldwide with over 48,000 staff.