Vehicle identification number - Anatomy of error occurrence

Abstract

Each vehicle manufactured after 1986 must be identified with a unique VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) by the manufacturer. This is so called individual vehicle identification, which is normally used as a primary data information key in various computer registers and vehicle information systems - in national vehicle registers, in police information systems (both national and international databases of stolen vehicles, etc.), in insurance company databases, leasing companies, in the eCALL technology etc. A VIN identifier error means that the vehicle cannot be found and it looks like everything is OK. The error rate of national and international registers is in the range of 5 % to 20 %. Most VIN errors occur in manual processes during transcribing or copying VINs from documents to information systems. This paper deals with the anatomy of VIN error occurrence in various processes and offers possibilities to eliminate them and improve the quality of the information systems that use VIN identifiers.