# Periodical Vehicle Inspections with Smart Technology
## 1 Introduction
### PTI in Slovak Republic  
Back in 1935, the Slovak Republic, which was then part of Czechoslovakia, made an initial attempt to introduce mandatory periodic technical inspections (PTI). Nowadays, almost all vehicles in Slovakia are required to undergo inspection. This article's main emphasis is on vehicle category M, passenger cars with four wheels, which must undergo the inspection within four years after their first registration and subsequently every two years thereafter. However, vehicles that are used for medical emergency services or mining rescue services, if they are equipped with priority driving rights--ambulance vehicles, vehicles used for the maintenance of gas facilities, and vehicles used for taxi services--have to undergo PTI every year. PTI intervals are comparable among the member states of the European Union and Slovakia is no exception. In Slovakia, the emission check is conducted as a distinct inspection procedure. The age of a vehicle is a crucial determinant of potential vehicle defects as the survey [41] made in Germany which is the EU country with more than 48 millions of registered vehicles, which is the most amongst EU countries. Table 1 shows a notable increase in the significant defect rate as vehicles age. In Slovakia, the average age of the registered vehicle is 14.3 years, which means significant defects appear with more than a 30% rate. To combat fraudulent activities at PTI service stations, the Slovak Republic has implemented several changes to its PTI policies and supervisory measures. According to Table 2, in 2019, over 50% of severe regulation breaches were associated with the service brake, while almost 30% were linked to the parking brake. In Table 3, the data from 2020 indicate that service brake-related violations still account for over 50% of severe regulation breaches, but instances related to parking brakes have decreased to less than 15%. In Table 4, the data from 2021 show a similar percentage of service brake-related violations of over 50% of severe regulation violations and, again, similarly to 2020, the violations related to parking brake percentage are below 15%. This paper did not aim to investigate the reasons behind these fraudulent practices or whether the regulations are excessively stringent. However, it is crucial to note that malfunctioning service brakes can result in highly hazardous situations on the road. Consequently, measures to mitigate fraudulent behavior at PTI stations have been implemented in Slovakia. Since 2019, it has been mandatory for all vehicle inspection stations in the Slovak Republic to install surveillance cameras as a preventive measure. The heightened monitoring has resulted in a higher failure rate during PTI inspections, which increased from 6.2% to 13.1% in March 2019, more than doubling the failure rate; the trend in failure rate from 2013 to 2021 is shown in Figure 1. A comprehensive summary of the quality management and assessment of PTI stations in Slovakia and other selected EU countries is presented in [42]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l r r r r} \hline \hline
**Vehicle Age** & **Approx. Number of Cars** & **No Defects [\%]** & **Minor Defects [\%]** & **Significant Defects [\%]** \\ \hline \textless{}3 & 902,500 & 92.3 & 2.94 & 4.72 \\ 3 to 5 & 975,000 & 87.42 & 4.83 & 7.67 \\ 5 to 7 & 823,000 & 79.82 & 7.71 & 12.31 \\ 7 to 9 & 763,500 & 71.15 & 10.89 & 17.59 \\ 9 to 12 & 1,210,000 & 59.65 & 15.05 & 24.79 \\ \textgreater{}12 & 2,000,000 & 42.99 & 20.88 & 35.00 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: PTI results 2020 by DEKRA in Germany. The implementation of a mobile application has been enhancing the supervision of technical vehicle inspection (PTI) in Slovakia since 1 January 2020. A mobile app provided a digital platform that allows inspectors to perform specific tasks on vehicles and record data using their mobile devices.