The role of Central Technical Body
Decree No 91-1021 of 4 October 1991 designates UTAC as Central Technical Body (OTC) for the technical inspection of vehicles.
Responsibilities of OTC (Article R323-7 of the French Highway Code)
The French Minister for Transport shall designate a central technical body responsible on its behalf and in accordance with its instructions for:
- Collecting and analysing the results of inspections in order to monitor the operation of inspection centres, check the consistency of inspections and collect information about the condition of the national vehicle fleet.
- Keep up to date the elements that can be used to keep inspection equipment and methods, and also information and training for inspectors, in step with technical progress.
- Provide technical assistance for verification of the quality of the services provided by inspection centres.
OTC is also designated to use EU type approval document files for vehicle registrations.
It carries out all operations associated with:
- Assigning national type identification codes (CNIT).
- Sending technical data to the authorities responsible for registration.
- Creating and maintaining a database of European type approvals of vehicles.
- Monitoring changes in the technical and performance characteristics of vehicles.
What is UTAC?
Also designated as a technical expert to the French authorities, UTAC actively participates in working groups on global (UNECE) and European (EU) regulatory changes through the relevant bodies in Geneva and Brussels.
UTAC accreditations
UTAC is notified by the French, British, Dutch and Romanian authorities to the European Commission and the United Nations to carry out all tests for the approval of vehicles and their equipment, in accordance with the regulations of the EU and the UNECE respectively.
Many countries (Japan, Taiwan, Australia, etc.) have accredited UTAC to carry out tests within the framework of their own national regulations.
UTAC is also the official Euro NCAP laboratory responsible for measuring vehicle safety performance.
Role of Central Technical Body (OTC)
OTC’s responsibilities are defined by:
- Article 29 of the Ministerial Order of 18 June 1991 as amended, as regards the technical inspection of light vehicles.
- Article 37 of the Ministerial Order of 27 July 2004, as regards the technical inspection of heavy vehicles.
In particular this means:
- Preparation of technical documents on the inspection methods and equipment to be used.
- Preparation of the necessary technical documents to ensure the collection of all data related to technical inspections carried out at inspection centres.
- Preparation of the necessary technical documents for the computerised processing of information on vehicles and their technical inspection results.
- Centralisation and long-term storage of inspection results under the conditions set by a technical assistance agreement between the OTC and each of the networks or unaffiliated inspection centres.
- Analysis of inspection results to characterise the operation of inspection centres and networks and make sure inspections are carried out consistently.
- Provision of technical assistance to the government for approving unaffiliated inspection centres and vehicle technical inspection networks.
- Preparation of a report each year on the fleet of vehicles inspected and its technical characteristics, in accordance with the Minister for Transport instructions.
- Centralising and keeping up to date all the technical elements necessary for inspector information and training, and making them available to inspection networks and unaffiliated centres.
- Preparing and keeping up to date the information listed in III of Articles R323-14 and R323-18 of the French Highway Code.
- Checking the conformity of networks’ and inspection centres’ IT systems to the functional specifications and the communication protocol.
- Provision of technical support to the government in the context of training programme approvals and accreditation of audit bodies.