Although the UK has a good record of handling vehicle safety recalls, fleet owners are facing rising costs in administering and managing the range of paper and digital notifications they receive from motor manufacturers.

Ebbon-Dacs’ web-based system will provide a single location for all manufacturers to list their safety recall notifications. BVRLA members or their appointed agents can retrieve the information by inputting their own fleet data so that it can be compared. A report is then produced, showing all vehicles that are subject to a new recall notification and highlighting those with outstanding recalls. The new system also has the potential to cover non-safety recalls and customers will have the option to purchase a product for notifying drivers.

John Lewis, BVRLA chief executive, said: ‘Our members own and operate more than two-and-a-half million vehicles and finding a cost-effective, easy-to-use solution that the whole industry can adopt has been one of the association’s long-term goals’.

Alastair Peoples, VOSA chief executive, commented: ‘Britain has some of the safest roads in the world and the recall system contributes to this. It's really encouraging to see manufacturers and the fleet industry working together to improve the effectiveness of the safety recall process."

Robert Pilkington, managing director at Ebbon-Dacs, added: ‘As a long term supplier to the vehicle leasing industry, we feel privileged to be chosen for this critical safety initiative on behalf of the BVRLA, its members and the automotive manufacturers.

‘We believe that introducing this new ‘standard’ will help simplify the whole process – leading to greater efficiency and faster safety recall handling in future.’

It is hoped that fleet owners and motor manufacturers will be able to test the service during its pilot stage in May 2012 and it is expected that it will be widely accessible from August 2012.