Bus services: provision of information
139Information about bus services
(1)Each local transport authority must from time to time determine, having regard to their local transport plan—
(a)what local bus information should be made available to the public (“the required information”), and
(b)the way in which it should be made available (“the appropriate way”).
(2)Before making such a determination, the authority must consult—
(a)such organisations appearing to the authority to be representative of users of local services as they think fit, and
(b)the traffic commissioner for the traffic area covering their area.
(3)Each authority must from time to time ascertain whether the required information is being made available to the public in the appropriate way.
(4)Subsection (5) applies if an authority consider that—
(a)the required information is not being made available to the public to any extent, or
(b)that information is not being made available to the public in the appropriate way.
(5)If this subsection applies, the authority must seek to make arrangements with the operators of the local services concerned under which those operators agree to make the information available (or to make it available in that way).
(6)In this section “local bus information”, in relation to a local transport authority, means—
(a)information about routes and timetabling of local services to, from and within the authority’s area,
(b)information about fares for journeys on such local services, and
(c)such other information about facilities for disabled persons, travel concessions, connections with other public passenger transport services or other matters of value to the public as the authority consider appropriate in relation to their area.
140Duty of authority to make information available
(1)If the authority are unable to make satisfactory arrangements with one or more of those operators, they—
(a)must make available, or secure that there is made available, in the appropriate way such of the required information as is not being made available or is not being made available in that way (whether by virtue of arrangements made under section 139(5) or otherwise), and
(b)may recover from that operator or those operators the reasonable costs incurred by them in doing so as a civil debt due to them.
(2)In determining for the purposes of subsection (1)(b) what is reasonable in relation to a particular operator, the authority must have regard to—
(a)the amount of information which has to be made available, and
(b)the way in which that information has to be made available,
in respect of the local services provided by that operator.
(3)If the authority require an operator to provide information to them or to another person in order to perform their duty under subsection (1)(a), the operator must provide the information at such times and in such manner as is specified by the authority.
(4)The authority must give notice of any requirement imposed under subsection (3) to the traffic commissioner for the traffic area covering their area.
141Bus information: supplementary
(1)In considering how they should carry out their functions under sections 139 and 140, a local transport authority must have regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.
(2)In carrying out those functions, local transport authorities—
(a)must not act in such a way as to discriminate (whether directly or indirectly) against any operator, or class of operator, of local services, and
(b)must co-operate with one another.
(3)A local transport authority must have regard to the desirability, in appropriate cases, of carrying out those functions jointly with another authority (whether as respects the whole or any part of their combined area).