General background
87.The majority of bus services in Scotland are provided by bus operators on a commercial basis, though they are subject to regulation to ensure that vehicles meet safety and environmental standards, that operators and drivers are suitably qualified and comply with their legal obligations, that services are operated punctually and reliably and that accurate passenger information is made available in good time.
88.These requirements are enforced by the Traffic Commissioner for Scotland, an independent statutory regulator, with the support of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, an agency of the UK Department for Transport. In addition, Bus Users Scotland, a not-for-profit membership organisation, works to promote the interests of bus users, monitors services to see if they are reliable and punctual and works with bus operators to ensure effective mechanisms for dealing with customer complaints.
89.Transport Scotland subsidises a proportion of the overall costs of the bus network (including scheduled and demand responsive services) through Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) which is provided under section 38 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001.
90.Beyond this, the majority of services are funded by passenger fares and by reimbursement payments from Transport Scotland for carrying passengers under the national concessionary bus travel schemes, which account for around a third of all bus journeys.
91.A significant minority of services that would not otherwise be viable receive additional financial support from local transport authorities in order to meet social needs in line with their local transport strategies and plans.
92.In some instances, especially where patronage would be too low to justify conventional scheduled bus services, authorities provide demand responsive or dial ride services using a mix of providers using bus and taxi firms and community transport groups.
Regulatory framework
93.The regulation of the provision and funding of bus services in Scotland is largely devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The regulatory framework is similar to that in England (outside London) and Wales and is based on a commercial market with some government subsidy for bus services (via BSOG) and funding for concessionary travel and with a range of transport authority powers including the ability to subsidise otherwise non-commercial services where necessary.
94.The legal framework for bus services is primarily contained in the following Acts:
Transport Act 1968;
Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981;
Transport Act 1985 (“the 1985 Act”);
Transport (Scotland) Act 2001 (“the 2001 Act”);
Transport (Scotland) Act 2005.
95.There are also numerous statutory instruments that sit below these pieces of legislation setting out the detail of the various regimes.
96.The Scottish Government’s agency, Transport Scotland, sets the national policy framework and provides funding to support bus services.
97.The traffic commissioner for the Scottish Traffic Area is the independent licensing and regulatory authority. The Commissioner is a ‘cross border public authority’ with reserved and devolved responsibilities. Licensing of bus operators (Public Service Vehicles (PSVs)) and disciplinary action against PSV drivers are reserved to the UK. Registration of services is devolved and subject to the Public Service Vehicles (Registration of Local Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2001 The regulatory regime is designed to ensure that bus service operators are of good repute and that services are introduced, varied or cancelled in an orderly fashion and operated safely and reliably as registered.
98.Provided that an operator registers a service with the Office of the Traffic Commissioner they can operate any route they wish to any timetable (subject to certain limitations where a quality partnership or contract scheme is in place or where the traffic commissioner has imposed a traffic regulation condition at the local transport authority’s request). Bus operators use their commercial judgement to determine service routes and frequencies. This market based approach encourages innovation and entrepreneurship and provides incentives for operators to bear down on costs, provide new services and develop new types of service. The statutory process for registration of bus services was changed in January 2016 to extend the time period for pre-registration engagement with local transport authorities.
99.Local transport authorities (defined in paragraph 102 below) are responsible for ensuring that bus services in their area meet local needs. Under the 1985 Act, they have a duty to secure the provision of services that they deem to be socially necessary and that would otherwise not be provided commercially and a power to provide subsidy to operators to provide those services.
100.Local authorities are also generally responsible for infrastructure – including bus stations and stops, bus lanes and other priority measures – and ensuring the provision of passenger information. Through the planning system and management of roads and parking, local authorities have a significant influence on the context in which services have to operate.
101.The 2001 Act gave local transport authorities wide ranging powers to work with operators in improving bus services, including quality partnerships and quality contracts (a kind of franchising).
Glossary of existing legislative expressions
102.There are several expressions used in these Notes which are drawn from existing legislation. This paragraph sets out and explains the most common:
“local service” is defined by section 2 of the 1985 Act. While there are some exceptions, it generally refers to a service using one or more public service vehicles for the carriage of passengers by roads at separate fares;
“local transport authorities” (LTAs) are typically local authorities: see section 82(1) of the 2001 Act. The Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority is also defined as a local transport authority. Further, a number of Transport Partnerships have had some of the functions of a local transport authority conferred upon them by virtue of orders under section 10 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005;
“passenger transport authorities” (PTA) were established under the Transport Act 1968. These authorities have a duty to secure the provision of public passenger transport services in their area (see section 9A of the Transport Act 1968). They also have powers to provide subsidies in support of that duty. There is only one PTA in Scotland – Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority. However, most of their functions (including their function under section 9A) have now been transferred to the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) (a regional Transport Partnership – see below). The rest of Scotland is served by local transport authorities or regional Transport Partnerships;
“public service vehicle” (PSV) is defined by section 1 of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 and means a motor vehicle which is either (i) a vehicle adapted to carry more than 8 passengers that is used for carrying passengers for hire or reward, or (ii) a vehicle that isn’t adapted that is used for carrying passengers for hire or reward at separate fares in the course of a business of carrying passengers;
“regional Transport Partnership” refers to any of the Transport Partnerships which were established by an order made under section 1 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005 in respect of a particular region of Scotland. Each Transport Partnership is required to create a regional transport strategy for its area. The Transport (Scotland) Act 2005 also allows for certain local transport functions to be transferred to these Partnerships and 3 such orders have been made, transferring functions to SPT (covering the West of Scotland region), SWestrans (covering the South-west region) and ZEstrans (covering Shetland);
103.The order made in 2005(2) which created the regional Transport Partnerships originally named the region covered by SPT as the “West of Scotland” region and provided that the regional Transport Partnership for that area would be known as the “West of Scotland Transport Partnership”. However, a Transport Partnership may decide to change the name of its region by notifying the Scottish Ministers and its constituent councils and the West of Scotland Transport Partnership notified Ministers of its change of name to “Strathclyde Partnership for Transport” in early 2006;
“traffic areas” are areas established under section 3 of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981. The whole of Scotland is classed as a single traffic area for the purposes of that Act;
“traffic commissioner” is an office established under section 4 of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981. The Scottish traffic commissioner is a designated cross border public authority and is appointed by the Secretary of State. The commissioner has a variety of statutory enforcement functions relating to:
PSV operator licences;
registration of local services;
ticketing schemes;
the provision of information.
The Regional Transport Partnerships (Establishment, Constitution and Membership) (Scotland) Order 2005 SSI 2005/622.
