Local authorities, apart from Transport for London, do not run bus schemes. Operators outside London may wish to run buses during the night and they register these routes with the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA).
Exact information on the number of schemes is not available without incurring disproportionate costs.
The Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses include figures for the Department for Transport’s expenditure per head of population for local public transport in London and the other English regions. Planned figures are available at this level of disaggregation for 2007-08 but not beyond. Regional figures have not been split down to the passenger transport executive areas.
The following table shows the DFT spend on local public transport per head of population in each English region, including London, for each year from 2001-02 to 2007-08. It includes direct payments from central Government to bus operators, but not financial support for local authorities (including bus services) or funding for heavy rail services. These are both reported elsewhere in the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses, which are published at:
£ 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-081 North East 12 12 14 9 9 10 11 North West 8 8 10 8 9 9 10 Yorkshire and the Humber 9 9 11 8 9 9 9 East Midlands 7 6 9 6 6 6 6 West Midlands 8 7 10 7 7 7 8 Eastern 19 14 34 6 6 6 6 London 85 59 172 11 13 12 12 South East 13 10 23 5 5 6 6 South West 7 6 9 6 6 6 7 1 Plans.
Powers granted to Government under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 enabled the Department for Transport to make regulations allowing wheelchair users to access new buses and travel in safety and in reasonable comfort. No such powers were granted in respect of people using pushchairs.
The Department published guidance in 2003 advising bus staff of their duties with respect to disabled passengers, and more than 150,000 copies of this document have been issued.
More recently, the Department has worked with the Disability Rights Commission (now the Commission for Equality and Human Rights) to produce sector specific guidance for transport operators on avoiding discrimination. The guidance for buses and scheduled coaches provides advice on use of the designated wheelchair space by passengers other than wheelchair users, and this document is available from their website at www.equalityhumanrights.com
While other passengers are at liberty to use the designated wheelchair space when it is not required by a wheelchair user, it should be vacated, if at all possible, when it is required for a wheelchair user to travel.
The Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 (PSVAR) specify vehicle construction requirements to enable disabled passengers, including wheelchair users, to access new buses and travel in safety and reasonable comfort. Each new bus falling with scope of these regulations is required to be fitted with at least one wheelchair space.
The Public Service Vehicles (Conduct of Drivers, Inspectors, Conductors and Passengers)(Amendment) Regulations 2002 require that the driver of a bus which complies with the PSVAR allow a wheelchair user to board if the designated wheelchair space is unoccupied, and it is safe to do so. An operator should not transport more occupied wheelchairs than there are designated wheelchair spaces on their vehicle. The Department published guidance in 2003 advising bus staff of their duties with respect to disabled passengers, and more than 150,000 copies of this document have been issued.
There are neither regulations nor guidance relating specifically to the safe carriage of pushchairs on buses. However, there are general regulations in force which seek to protect the safety of all passengers on buses.