early morning hours for Reaching a hit spot on ITV and queues of up to three hours to pass inspection. This is what’s happening in the world Stations in the main cities of the province Taking the turn to pass the car inspection becomes an impossible task. Inside Alicante, Elche, Benidorm and Ondara All appointments on the website of Sitval, the public company that has been running the service for about a year, were sold out by March and the April agenda was not opened.
This problem, which has been going on for months and still has no solution, keeps drivers and mechanics up at night. at 7.30am or even earlierThis is when most facilities open for inspection. Income without an appointment because they’ve been trying to do this for weeks get online and take advantage of it first thing in the morning. endless queues that last for hours It occurs at noon or afternoon, and there are even days when it goes off-site.
In other parts of the province, such as Alcoy, the situation is a little more bearable; here yesterday it was possible to make an appointment for a day in March, and in April the appointment slot was already open. Novelda also had one Saturday in February and was available most days in March. As confirmed by this newspaper, in Orihuela appointments could be made online as of February 21, and almost the same thing is happening in Pilar de la Horadada, Redován, Torrevieja and Villena.
«I came here to try to get caught this early because I’m going on a trip next week and I couldn’t get an appointment,” said a person who queued with his car in Elche at 7:40 am this Tuesday. Behind him before dawn the owner of a minibus was waiting for the same purpose. “He took days when I try to take shifts “I contacted the website and by calling, but this was not possible and my vehicle needs to be started,” he said.
And the website of the Technical Vehicle Inspection Association of Valencia states that although there are no appointments, they are extended subject to availability, and therefore they recommend consulting the website periodically. They also recommend calling 960 88 22 00 to get some of the appointments that become free at any time.
But, These alternatives have not proven effective enough For users considering the complaints that occur. «Fear of punishment and satisfaction with the service, I decided to come one morning and found myself 25 vehicles ahead. They told me at dawn, as soon as it opened, that I might be lucky and pass the inspection without an appointment, and that’s what I did,” said another user from Alicante ITV.
Most annoying
Those who experience this collapse every day are undoubtedly car mechanic. There are workshops where five vehicles are inspected on the same day, and while the online appointment system is practically blocked, all you have to do is go to the stations in the province without an appointment and spend hours in the opened lines. These cases. “I arrived at 7.30 in the morning and left at 9.30, I returned with another car at 10 in the morning and it is almost 13.00 and there are still ten vehicles in front of me,” complained a worker working in a workshop on Tuesday. ITV in Elche.
His anger was shared by many sector employees who came to the facilities in the morning. «When the service was in private hands, it was necessary to wait, it was normal but not that long. He’s getting a lot older now. “This shows that there are fewer staff,” he said, criticizing another mechanic who came without a shift.
The mechanical workshops included in the Elche Metal Association (AEME) are complemented by the Valencian Community Association of Vehicle Repair Workshops (ASTAC-Xativa) and the Association of Automobile Repair Shops of Marina Alta and related workshops (ASETRAMA). Urgent from the Valencian company that manages ITV A letter requesting a meeting. The industry will demand to find the best alternative to put an end to appointment saturation, which harms both individuals and workshops when passing mandatory technical inspections of vehicles. The group already feels that the obstacles they have been experiencing for months are unacceptable and have a negative impact on their business.
It is feared that there will be more problems in the sector as of Thursday, February 1. At least in Elche mechanics only They will be able to pass the inspection when an appointment is made for a specific license plate and they can inspect a maximum of two vehicles, something the Department for Industry and Innovation assured this newspaper, which is generally how it always works, to prevent workshops from making block appointments by anticipating the cars that will go. take away, which makes the service even more difficult. In fact, the Generalitat examines the following formula: Collect ITV fee in advance when an appointment is made.
Greater availability, especially in the province’s smaller municipalities, means many people are opting to travel to shorten the long-awaited review deadline. However, due to the kilometers they have to travel to the workshops, this formula is sometimes not profitable and they succumb to long queues.
In the solution process
The regional administration is aware of the saturation experienced in the busiest stations of the province in recent months. Nuria Montes department assured this newspaper that it had made an offer to start a new contract. Computer software that allows making the appointment system easier. The estimate is that it could be operational during February.
However, note that although there are no appointments available on the website, this does not mean that an appointment cannot be made by phone.
In any case, the Ministry of Industry also has pending Number of telephone operators in call center service doubledAccording to regional sources, after the hiring process was blocked by various sources, it will expand from 11 workers to 22 workers to improve its operations and this is expected to happen in February.
Added to these measures: The five temporary lines announced by this ministry for 2024 With an investment of 700,000 euros, it is designed to reduce the density of facilities in Alicante, Benidorm, Novelda and the municipality of Vega Baja, which has not yet been completed.
What caused ITV’s collapse? The publicly listed company has been managing Technical Vehicle Inspection (ITV) stations in the Valencian Community for nearly a year, following the cancellation by the Generalitat at the end of February 2023.
The biggest problem, as the Workers’ Commissions point out, is that not all stations have the necessary equipment. staff is needed and that hiring workers for public companies is much more complicated than for private companies. In addition, the same union sources state: public company Sitval, When he took the reins of the service, he found himself with a large number of temporary staff and that the majority of the employees, who should have been permanent staff, were not, and ended up on the streets.
Moreover, as CC OO added to this newspaper, the usual before this stage was to reinforce staff with more clients and work a lot of overtime during seasons such as Christmas or summer.
The union confirmed that Sitval had presented them with a proposal for a new works board, but that it had not been started because it had to pass minimum checks, a filter that is not required for a private company.
The Ministry of Industry claimed that, apart from the temporary reinforcements made in June, although not at Christmas, it was working on the five lines it wanted to reinforce in the five municipalities of the province, especially on the recruitment of personnel.
Mechanical workshops, which are the most frequent customers of ITV stations, have also noticed reductions in staff numbers.
«Before the service reversal we found ourselves with three people working on the same line. “The person who now has to do a full inspection in many cases is very slow,” complained a workshop in Elche, which claimed that it had stopped going to the city station for months and resorted to resorting to Murcia because there are more facilities.