Does the 48-Hour Working Week Include POA?
No — periods of availability aren't working time, so POA doesn't count towards your 48-hour average or 60-hour week. Only driving and other work do. Here's why.
No — the 48-hour working week does not include periods of availability. POA isn't working time, so it's excluded from both the 48-hour weekly average and the 60-hour single-week ceiling. Only driving and other work count towards those limits.
What the 48-hour average counts
Under the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005, your working time must not exceed an average of 48 hours a week, and GOV.UK's working time rules for drivers confirm that up to 60 hours can be worked in any single week so long as the 48-hour average holds. What feeds those figures is working time — driving plus all other work like checks, fuelling, loading and paperwork. POA is a separate, neutral category, so it stays out of the sum.
Why POA is left out
The whole point of the POA category is that it isn't work — it's foreseeable, known-duration waiting where you're available but not working. Because it isn't working time, it doesn't count towards the 48-hour average or the 60-hour week, and it doesn't count as a break or rest either. That cuts both ways: a day with a lot of genuine POA can be a long day on the clock while adding relatively little to your working-time totals. Just make sure the time really is POA and not open-ended waiting, which would be other work and would count.
The reference period
The 48 hours is an average, taken over a reference period of 17 weeks — extendable to a maximum of 26 weeks by a collective or workforce agreement. So a heavy week isn't automatically a breach; it's the average across the reference period that matters, along with the absolute 60-hour ceiling in any single week. POA sits outside all of it. This is also why you can't simply opt out of the 48-hour limit — it's an average, not a weekly line you can waive.
What to do
Record POA as POA and don't count it towards your working-time totals — but be honest about what's really POA versus other work. Keep an eye on the 60-hour single-week ceiling as well as the 48-hour average, because the ceiling is absolute. The free drivers' hours calculator treats POA as neutral and separates it from working time, so you can see your true 48-hour position, and the 48-hour working week rules explain the working-time limits in full. For operators managing the 17-week average across a fleet, that tracking is exactly what our per-vehicle plans are built for.