Software for transport managers who have to prove the system works
A transport manager's job is continuous and personal: if the Traffic Commissioner asks, you need the evidence in order. Smart Strix keeps that evidence organised.
What does a transport manager actually have to evidence?
Continuous and effective management of the transport operation — that's the statutory phrase, and the Traffic Commissioner interprets it through paperwork. In practice you're expected to be able to show, on demand: that daily checks happen and defects get fixed, that safety inspections run to a planned schedule, that vehicle documents are in date, and that drivers are licensed, trained and monitored. The obligation is personal to you as the named TM (or the responsible manager in a restricted operation), which is why "it's somewhere in the office" is such a dangerous filing system. What follows maps each strand of evidence to where it lives in Smart Strix.
How does Smart Strix help evidence daily checks and defects?
Honestly framed: Smart Strix does not contain an in-app itemised walkaround checklist. What it does have is vehicle check-out and check-in with photos — drivers photograph the vehicle's condition when they take it and when they return it, timestamped against the vehicle and driver. Run your walkaround on paper or a spreadsheet (our printable walkaround checklist and defect report form template are free), then keep the completed sheets, condition photos and repair invoices attached to the vehicle record. The result is a dated trail from reported fault to documented fix — the exact chain a DVSA examiner traces at a maintenance investigation.
How does maintenance planning work?
Each vehicle in the registry carries inspection due dates and a maintenance history: what was done, when, with receipts and odometer photos where drivers logged them. Set your safety inspection intervals, and upcoming due dates surface before they lapse rather than after. Fuel logs sit alongside — litres, price, station and receipt photos — which doubles as early warning when one vehicle's consumption drifts, often the first symptom of a mechanical problem. DVSA guidance expects these records kept for at least 15 months; digital storage means the 15-month rule is a non-event instead of an archive project.
What about vehicle documents and expiry dates?
MOT, insurance and V5C documents live against each vehicle with an expiry radar that alerts you ahead of time. For a TM juggling ten registrations, this is the difference between renewals as routine and renewals as near-misses. An out-of-date document discovered at the roadside is precisely the sort of avoidable failure that shows up in your OCRS score and invites closer DVSA attention at the next encounter.
How are driver records handled?
- Document vault — licences, CPC cards and training certificates stored per driver, so licence-check day means opening a screen, not chasing photocopies.
- Shift clock-in/out with weekly history — a record of who worked when, useful context for duty-time conversations (note: Smart Strix is not a tachograph analysis tool — keep your tacho analysis provider for that).
- Roles and permissions — admin, manager, driver and viewer roles keep drivers seeing their jobs while you and the office see everything.
- Skills tags — tail lift, ADR cert and similar capabilities recorded against drivers, so allocation decisions are defensible as well as fast.
Why do transport managers pick Smart Strix over enterprise fleet suites?
Because most TM software assumes a compliance department. Smart Strix assumes a working transport office where the TM also chases invoices: the same platform runs dispatch, proof of delivery and invoicing, so compliance evidence accumulates as a side effect of daily operations rather than as a separate data-entry job. There's no telematics hardware to buy or install — tracking, where you want it, comes from the driver app on Advanced. And it's priced for small fleets: free to start, with plan details on the pricing page. If you hold the O-licence yourself, our page for O-licence holders maps undertakings to features one by one.