Chamber and committees

The responsibility for licensing and regulating operators of public service vehicles (PSVs) and local bus services sits with the Office of the Traffic Commissioner. It is for their office to take action against a vehicle operator, bus service operator or driver of a bus or minibus and they can impose financial penalties on registered bus service operators who are unable to maintain the conditions of the licence of the registered route including punctuality of services.

Transport Scotland also provides funding for Bus Users Scotland (BUS) to support this. BUS conduct compliance monitoring to check bus services are running where and when they should be. They also focus on working with government, local authorities, special interest groups, and bus companies to make sure the views and interests of passengers are properly represented.

Additionally, the Scottish Government’s recently published Bus Taskforce report outlines the positive steps taken by operators to address bus driver shortages which can be a factor impacting the reliability of services. The report can be found at https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/bus-taskforce-summary-report/