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March 27, 2009 marked the date exactly 8 years ago that MAHA signed the contract for its  largest and only PFI Project (Private Finance Initiative) in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The “DVTA Project MOT 2 “Northern Ireland.”

The national Northern Ireland Motor Vehicle Test Organization DVTA (Driver & Vehicle Testing Agency), which at that time had conducted vehicle testing for more than 25 years, required new test possibilities and the most modern test equipment to meet the needs of progressive vehicle technology. The 15 existing test centers which, due to infra-structure issues, were spread across the entire country in larger cities needed to be updated with state-of-the-art technology.

Project mandate: DVTA Project MOT 2  Providing the Equipment and Commissioning of 15 Test Centers with a total of 61 test lanes (43 cars/ 18 trucks) within 2 years with a subsequent 15 year project runtime.

Costs of the project for the entire term of the project: 57  Million English Pounds!!

The installation of the test equipment, the commissioning, calibration when necessary as well as the functionality including maintenance of the systems, has to be guaranteed during the entire span of project lifetime. Possible test equipment malfunctions or breakdowns must be remedied within a 4 hour timeframe otherwise a substantial penalty is applied based on a fixed, weighted scale.

At that time, these type of PFI projects, financed by banks, were common practice in England in order to secure current financing and to shield the state from the risks entailed with such large projects. The risks involved were then shifted to the private companies who were responsible for the project. Normally such projects refinance themselves during the life of the project by, in this case, applying the testing fees which are charged for the officially required periodic technical vehicle inspection.

As early as 1998 Northern Ireland issued an international tender to realize its plan to modernize its vehicle inspection program. MAHA’s offer proved to be the best among several European bidders and it was awarded the contract. Naturally MAHA could not execute such a  project solely on its own due to the  complexity of the tasks required and the need for a local company on-site. For this reason, together with the Northern Irish, globally operating construction company “Rotary Group Ltd“, “MAHA“ founded a so-called “SPV“ (Special Purpose Vehicle),  or Joint Venture Company giving it the name “ROMAHA“ headquartered in Belfast. Drawn-out negogiations followed, conducted for the most part by law firms hired by the 18 participating companies or organizations. Finally, the conclusion had a volume of 39 different contracts. The most important contract partners were: the Northern Ireland Department of Environment-(DOE), responsible for DVTA, the Bank of Ireland as financier and ROMAHA, entrusted with the management of the entire project, Rotary Ltd. as responsible company for the restauration of buildings and systems, with MAHA having responsibility for the modernization and maintenance of the entire test equipment, computer networks/hardware was supplied by SX3/Northgate Ltd. IT company and administrations software supplier was Vision Ltd. For testing purposes, a car and truck test lane including all necessary test equipment was put at DVTA’ s disposal by MAHA long before project begin.

Following PFI Contract was negogiated and finalized:

The functionality and suitability of the MAHA test equipment for the required testing procedure within the set time period must be proven within six months in a pilot system.

Subsequent to this, the 15 test centers will be shut down within two years (2001 – 2003) using a fixed cycle, renovated, new test equipment installed, approved by DVTA as operator and integrated back into the running test operation.

The skilled installation and correct commissioning of the test equipment is carried out by the service technicians of MAHA-Irland Ltd. (subsidiary of MAHA)

To guarantee proper commissioning and usage of the system DVTA testing personnel will be trained on-site in various courses by two teachers of a Northern Ireland Vocational Training Institute who have been trained and certified at the MAHA Training Center in Haldenwang.

Our documentation department will supply detailed technical documents and instructions for the user in the language of the country to support the training measures.

After the two year outfitting phase, the 15-year project time period started in 2003 and ends in 2018.

With this outfitting the 15 test centers will conduct on average 500,000  periodic motor vehicle inspections per year.

The periodic maintenance work as well as the upkeep of the test equipment and outfitting will be carried out during the entire project runtime by MAHA-Ireland Ltd. service technicians.

In April 2007 DVTA was renamed DVA, when, for organizational reasons, it was consolidated with the DVLNI (Driver & Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland) , the local public licensing agency.

A new test procedure was conceived for the test lanes which had not been used on any other customers to date. (Transponder, networking with administrative software, multiple networked sections per test lane, etc.)

In total 61 test lanes were installed and equipped (43 car/18 truck) with following test devices:

Set up of the CAR lanes:
Section 1: visual inspection “under the hood“, emission test MDO 2/ MGT 5
Section 2: visual inspection “vehicle allround check“, brake and position light test using mirror, headlight test using Light Tester Lite 1.2
Section 3: visual inspection of vehicle interior, side-slip test with Minc 1 Euro, suspension test with SA2 Euro, brake test with IW2 Euro Roller set 2
Section 4: visual inspection of vehicle underside with lift Duo + 1 with wheel-free jack,  PMS front and rear, as well as axle jack.

Set up of the Truck Lanes:
Section 1: visual inspection “vehicle allround check“, emission test MDO 2
Section 2 (only for car testing): Suspension tester SA2 Euro with 13 to drive-over
Section 3: Brake tester IW7 Eurosystem with hydr.weight simulator, pit jack MGH-Z  16.5,  visual inspection of vehicle underside
Section 4: brake and position light test using mirror, headlight test using Light Tester Lite 1.2  

Planning in Kick Off  2001:

• Removal of the desolute existing test equipment
• Installation of modern test equipment and subsequent maintenance
• Set up of an IT System to control the testing and administration of the test halls
• Renovation of the existing 15 test halls, with, e.g. new garage doors, new floor coverings, etc.
• Start up of a central administration headquarters in Belfast using the Department of Environment WAN for networking

The Distribution of the Test Centers