Free self-assessment

SMS gap check for heavy vehicle operators

Answer 87 questions across the five areas of the SMS Standard 2026. The full check takes about 20 minutes. You'll see where your system is in place and where the gaps are, and we'll email you a copy.

Change to the quick check

This is an indicative self-assessment, not an audit or an NHVR assessment.

Your details

Full name *

Company *

Email *

Phone

Fleet size

Leave this empty

Your operation

These questions set your operator profile (OP1, OP2 or OP3), using the NHVR's HVA Audit Matrix. Your profile decides which evidence we show you for each gap.

Operational scale

Fleet size (powered units) *

Drivers (including contractors) *

Geographic scope *

Organisational structure

Management structure *

Sites / depots *

Workforce *

System implementation

Systems *

Policies and procedures *

Risk management *

Assurance *

Administrative capacity

Compliance and admin staff *

Record keeping *

Audit preparation effort *

Your accreditation

Operator level

Current accreditation

Which NHVAS modules do you hold or are you applying for?

Mass management Maintenance management Fatigue management

If you tick a module, we'll ask the module questions below. Leave unticked modules unanswered.

Leadership and commitment

L1. Do you have a signed safety policy that commits the business to safety?

Yes Partly No N/A

L2. Are safety roles and responsibilities documented, and are the people in them competent?

Yes Partly No N/A

L3. Do all staff, including drivers and managers, know their roles in the SMS?

Yes Partly No N/A

L4. Is everyone clear about their safety duties as a party in the chain of responsibility?

Yes Partly No N/A

L5. Do senior managers understand your heavy vehicle operations, their hazards and public risks, and how the controls work in practice?

Yes Partly No N/A

L6. Can staff and drivers report hazards, incidents and improvement ideas without fear of reprisal?

Yes Partly No N/A

L7. Does senior management get the safety information it needs to oversee the system?

Yes Partly No N/A

L8. Do you have a chain of responsibility policy that says the business accepts its primary duty?

Yes Partly No N/A

L9. Is your SMS documentation practical and in proportion to what you actually do?

Yes Partly No N/A

L10. Are your public risks identified, documented and managed?

Yes Partly No N/A

L11. Do your procedures cover the public risks linked to your legal obligations (HVNL and any accreditation conditions)?

Yes Partly No N/A

L12. If you use alternative compliance procedures, are they tailored to your activities, size and risk?

Yes Partly No N/A

L13. Have you appointed a safety manager, or someone responsible for running and promoting the SMS?

Yes Partly No N/A

L14. Is that person's role written down, and do they report directly to the executive?

Yes Partly No N/A

L15. Have you allocated enough money, people and equipment to run the SMS?

Yes Partly No N/A

L16. Are resourcing decisions budgeted, documented and proportionate to your risks?

Yes Partly No N/A

L17. Does management actively make safety a top priority?

Yes Partly No N/A

L18. Do employees see safety as a shared responsibility?

Yes Partly No N/A

L19. Can staff stop work over a safety concern without penalty?

Yes Partly No N/A

L20. Is there open, two-way communication about safety between staff and management?

Yes Partly No N/A

L21. Can drivers and other chain of responsibility parties take part in safety decisions?

Yes Partly No N/A

Risk management

R1. Do you have a process for identifying and recording hazards?

Yes Partly No N/A

R2. Do you keep a hazard register or equivalent?

Yes Partly No N/A

R3. Are staff encouraged and protected when they report hazards?

Yes Partly No N/A

R4. Do you identify hazards from vehicles, equipment, loads, and work practices and systems, not just the workplace?

Yes Partly No N/A

R5. Is the public risk from the vehicle, the load, the road and the driver in your hazard register?

Yes Partly No N/A

R6. Do you have a documented risk assessment process?

Yes Partly No N/A

R7. Do you keep a risk register or an equivalent documented method?

Yes Partly No N/A

R8. Do risk assessments reflect your operating conditions and your interfaces with other parties?

Yes Partly No N/A

R9. Do risk assessments consider harm to drivers, passengers, other road users, freight, property, road infrastructure and the environment?

Yes Partly No N/A

R10. Are risks ranked so you can compare them?

Yes Partly No N/A

R11. Do assessments record severity and likelihood on a documented scale?

Yes Partly No N/A

R12. Are risk assessments used to decide which controls to put in place first?

Yes Partly No N/A

R13. Does each risk have a named owner?

Yes Partly No N/A

R14. Is the risk register reviewed and updated regularly?

Yes Partly No N/A

R15. Do your controls eliminate risks, or minimise them, so far as is reasonably practicable?

Yes Partly No N/A

R16. Is there evidence that your controls are in place and maintained?

Yes Partly No N/A

R17. Are ineffective or outdated controls reviewed and revised?

Yes Partly No N/A

R18. Do you consider likelihood, harm, knowledge, availability, suitability and cost, and put safety ahead of cost?

Yes Partly No N/A

R19. Do you have a formal process for reporting incidents and near misses?

Yes Partly No N/A

R20. Can you capture and record the details of each incident?

Yes Partly No N/A

R21. Do you investigate incidents to find the factors that contributed to them?

Yes Partly No N/A

R22. Are corrective actions carried out, monitored and closed?

Yes Partly No N/A

R23. Are lessons learnt shared with staff and chain of responsibility parties and built into the SMS?

Yes Partly No N/A

R24. Do your controls stay effective over time?

Yes Partly No N/A

R25. Is risk management an ongoing activity, rather than a one-off exercise?

Yes Partly No N/A

R26. Are systemic risks identified and addressed by senior management?

Yes Partly No N/A

R27. Do your site inspections cover heavy vehicle items, such as entry and exit points, pre-start checks, load restraint equipment, loading plans and trip plans?

Yes Partly No N/A

People

P1. Do you confirm that drivers hold the right licence for the vehicle and the task?

Yes Partly No N/A

P2. Have you told drivers what fitness to drive means, covering health, fatigue, and alcohol or drugs?

Yes Partly No N/A

P3. Can drivers decline to start, or stop, driving when they feel unfit, without penalty?

Yes Partly No N/A

P4. Are impairment risks (fatigue, substances and health) monitored and controlled?

Yes Partly No N/A

P5. Can supervisors and schedulers recognise signs that a driver may be unfit, and do they know how to escalate it?

Yes Partly No N/A

P6. Is there a defined escalation process, and do senior managers review what happened?

Yes Partly No N/A

P7. Is health-related information handled confidentially?

Yes Partly No N/A

P8. Do driver medicals follow the current fitness-to-drive guidance?

Yes Partly No N/A

P9. Have you identified the training and competence each role needs?

Yes Partly No N/A

P10. Do new staff, and staff starting new tasks, vehicles or sites, get induction and role-specific training?

Yes Partly No N/A

P11. Are staff trained in their safety duties and in their chain of responsibility role?

Yes Partly No N/A

P12. Do you keep current training and competency records for all staff?

Yes Partly No N/A

P13. Do you have a training schedule for refresher and corrective training?

Yes Partly No N/A

P14. Do your work procedures cover induction, fatigue, fitness, alcohol and drugs, loading and unloading, mass and dimension, and vehicle inspection and maintenance?

Yes Partly No N/A

P15. Is safety-critical information passed on clearly and promptly?

Yes Partly No N/A

P16. Does communication flow up, down and across the business?

Yes Partly No N/A

P17. Are safety issues, lessons learnt and changes shared with staff?

Yes Partly No N/A

P18. Are staff and contractors consulted, and can they give feedback?

Yes Partly No N/A

Assurance, monitoring and improvement

A1. Have you set safety objectives or indicators that show whether safety is improving or getting worse?

Yes Partly No N/A

A2. Are your indicators linked to your key safety risks?

Yes Partly No N/A

A3. Do you use both leading indicators (what you do) and lagging indicators (what happened)?

Yes Partly No N/A

A4. Do you monitor and review how well the SMS is working?

Yes Partly No N/A

A5. Does monitoring check that your controls are operating in practice?

Yes Partly No N/A

A6. Are review findings documented, acted on and closed out, with senior management oversight?

Yes Partly No N/A

A7. Do you monitor contractors' safety performance against agreed requirements?

Yes Partly No N/A

A8. Do you make improvements to the SMS from risk and assurance results?

Yes Partly No N/A

A9. Do you have a working way of finding and acting on improvement opportunities?

Yes Partly No N/A

A10. Are improvements documented, implemented and resourced?

Yes Partly No N/A

A11. Are records stored securely, kept current and easy to access?

Yes Partly No N/A

A12. Can every staff member get the records they need for their role?

Yes Partly No N/A

A13. Do your records show the SMS working as the law requires?

Yes Partly No N/A

Safety systems

S1. Is safety considered in planning, decisions and the way tasks are carried out?

Yes Partly No N/A

S2. Do the SMS elements work together as one connected system, rather than as separate processes?

Yes Partly No N/A

S3. Do the procedures people actually use match the documented SMS?

Yes Partly No N/A

S4. Can you show how responsibilities are coordinated across the business?

Yes Partly No N/A

S5. Are your coordination processes current and working as intended?

Yes Partly No N/A

S6. Are SMS requirements built into daily operations?

Yes Partly No N/A

S7. Do drivers and contractors consistently follow the SMS procedures?

Yes Partly No N/A

S8. Are operational deviations corrected and used to improve the SMS?

Yes Partly No N/A

Mass management module

Answer these only if you ticked this module above.

M1. Have you nominated the trucks or hauling units that run under mass management?

Yes Partly No N/A

M2. Do you keep mass and load records for each nominated vehicle?

Yes Partly No N/A

Maintenance management module

Answer these only if you ticked this module above.

M3. Are the trucks, trailers and hauling units in your maintenance module listed with the NHVR?

Yes Partly No N/A

M4. Do you keep maintenance records for each listed vehicle?

Yes Partly No N/A

Fatigue management module

Answer these only if you ticked this module above.

F1. Do drivers have records showing competency in the fatigue management course (TLIF0005)?

Yes Partly No N/A

F2. Do schedulers have records showing competency in the scheduling course (TLIF0006)?

Yes Partly No N/A

F3. Do drivers have current medicals that follow the Assessing Fitness to Drive guidance?

Yes Partly No N/A