MIS018: MOT project working paper, 18/3/14 1 Final MIS018 Vehicle inspections – from safety device to climate change tool Cairns S, Rahman S, Anable J, Chatterton T, Wilson RE Abstract In November 2010, data from the UK MOT (vehicle inspection) test were released into the public domain for the first time, with further releases since then. This has led to an ongoing stream of work in the UK by both the UK Department for Transport, and as part of a Research Councils UK Energy Programme project, in order to explore the potential offered by such data to investigate issues relating to vehicle ownership and use, energy consumption and emissions generation. This paper reviews the available literature about the practices of vehicle inspection around the world, in order to understand whether analytical techniques being developed in the UK have the potential to be useful elsewhere; the similarities and differences in the types of data collected through vehicle inspection regimes elsewhere; the types of analyses that have previously been conducted using vehicle inspection information; and the potential uses for the data in the future. 1. Introduction Data collected through periodic technical inspections of vehicles 1 have a number of potentially exciting features for those researching transport policy, energy use and climate change. This information is being collected anyway; it is often relatively comprehensive in relation to the vehicle stock; it is often held at national level; and it is increasingly available in computerised form. There has been extensive use of data from vehicle inspections in the past to look at issues relating to vehicle safety, and, separately, transport-generated air pollution, particularly in relation to the efficacy of periodic inspections to improve safety or reduce emissions. This paper is part of a research project looking at the potential to use British vehicle inspection (MOT test) data to explore a number of further issues - in particular, to understand trends in traffic and patterns of car ownership; to inform climate change policy; and to understand the role of vehicle use in general household energy use, and the implications for future power demands. 2 In November 2010, data from the British MOT (roadworthiness) tests were first released. The first data release consisted of the results of 150 million MOT tests, from the beginning of 2005 (when a computerised system of reporting was introduced) to the spring of 2010, for vehicles in Great Britain required to take an MOT test. Since then, further releases have provided updated test results. Some fields, such as vehicle registration number and vehicle identification number have been withheld in order to preserve vehicle anonymity. However, the dataset does include the results of the MOT test itself (including detailed reasons for failure), the vehicle odometer (mileage) reading; the vehicle manufacturer, type and engine capacity; and the time when the vehicle was first registered. The dataset also includes the top-level postcode for the Vehicle Testing Station (VTS) that carried out each test. 1 Terms such as ‘periodic technical inspection’, ‘vehicle inspection’, ‘MOT’,’ vehicle testing’ and ‘vehicle inspection and maintenance programmes’ (I/M programmes) are used in different countries to broadly mean the same thing. 2 Further details of the project are given in an acknowledgements section at the end.