Bus Services: Standards

Graham Stringer
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many staff are available to each of the Traffic Commissioners to monitor the reliability of bus services in each of the English regions.

Dr. Ladyman
The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) employs 10 staff based in England whose role includes the monitoring of bus service reliability. Their bases by traffic region are in the following table.

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|                               |Number|
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|North Eastern and North Western|4     |
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|Eastern                        |1     |
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|South Eastern                  |2     |
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|Western                        |2     |
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|West Midlands                  |1     |
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Graham Stringer
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many and what proportion of the bus fleet received an unannounced inspection allocated on a random basis by the Traffic Commissioners in each of the last five years.

Dr. Ladyman
The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) conducts unannounced inspections on bus fleets. It does not record the proportion of these requested by the Traffic Commissioners as opposed to other enforcement work.

The results of spot checks by VOSA where operator based are published annually in its Effectiveness Report. This is available on-line at: www.vosa.gov.uk or in the House of Commons Library, Business and Transport Section.

Graham Stringer
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many buses were inspected by VOSA officials in each of the last five years; and how many such buses were consequently subject to an (a) immediate and (b) delayed prohibition notice.

Dr. Ladyman
The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) publishes statistics on bus inspections, immediate and delayed prohibition notices annually in its Effectiveness Report. This is available on-line at www.vosa.gov.uk or from the House of Commons Library, Business and Transport Section.

Graham Stringer
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent estimate he has made of the distribution of responsibility for delays to bus services between (a) congestion, (b) mechanical failures and (c) fleet management.

Gillian Merron
The Department does not hold data on the causes of delays to buses. However, it does collect data on the causes of scheduled mileage not run by buses. These are published in Section 2 of the quarterly bulletin “Bus and Light Rail Statistics GB”, copies of which are held in the House of Commons Library.