Driving and rest hours (ARV1)
The drivers’ hours ordinance ARV 1 governs driving time, working time, breaks and rest periods for professional motor vehicle drivers, and obliges the employer to record those times and retain the records.
Definition
It applies to drivers of lorries above 3.5 tonnes and of coaches — not to everyone who drives for a living. For lighter vehicles in commercial passenger transport, ARV 2 applies with its own, less strict rules. Anyone driving in a mixed fleet falls under one ordinance or the other trip by trip.
Recording is done by the tachograph, and the data has to be read out and retained. At an inspection it is not the distance driven that is examined but the evidence: whoever cannot produce the data has breached the duty, regardless of whether the times were observed.
The ordinance is aligned with European law, because Swiss vehicles travel abroad and foreign vehicles in Switzerland. Changes therefore often follow European adjustments rather than a domestic debate.
The wording
Driving time between two daily rest periods, or between a daily and a weekly rest period, may not exceed 9 hours. It may be extended to 10 hours twice a week. Weekly driving time may not exceed 56 hours. Total driving time during two consecutive weeks may not exceed 90 hours.
Where to read it
What the software must be able to do
The ordinance does not demand a report but evidence — and it has to exist before the inspection, not be producible afterwards.
- Reading tachograph data per vehicle and per driver, without a detour through a spreadsheet.
- Evaluation of driving, working and rest times per driver over the day, the week and the two-week period — the ordinance counts across all three.
- A warning before the breach, not after it: a message at month end is worthless for dispatch.
- Drivers with several vehicles and vehicles with several drivers in the same period — the normal case in a business, and the one that breaks simple reports.
- Distinguishing ARV 1 from ARV 2 where the business runs both vehicle types.
- Retention across the full period, readable even after a change of vehicle or program — the evidence has to survive the change.
Checked Aug 2026
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