Annex
BUS SERVICE REGISTRATIONS
Operators have to register details of their
services with the Traffic Commissioner; any changes have to be
advised to the Traffic Commissioner and to the relevant local
authority or PTE not less than eight weeks before the change is
introduced. When this process was introduced in 1986, the notice
period was six weeks; it was increased to eight weeks as the Government
accepted that local authorities needed more time to react to proposed
changes primarily to deal with two key areas of activity:
— Some, but by no means all local authorities
publish timetables; Arriva itself issues timetables for all its
services and is part of a number of timetable and service information
initiatives such as traveline; all Arriva's services are also
published on the internet and are accessed over 2.5 million times
a year.
— All authorities have to consider
the effect of any service changes on the need to provide or modify
subsidised services or trips; for example, in the case of the
St Helens services reviewed elsewhere in this note, some journeys
previously subsidised by Merseytravel will be included in the
new commercial services.
The service registration process is an administrative
procedure, not an operational one. For example, a passenger waiting
at a stop in an urban area may be making a journey that can be
made on any of a number of routes that come together to form common
frequencies along main roads. Services may be entirely urban in
character or may run outside the urban area but be so timetabled
in the urban area that they work with other services to make up
a higher frequency service. Thus, a journey could be made on (for
example) route 1 that runs every 30 minutes at 10 and 40 minutes
past the hour, or route 2 running at 30 minute intervals at 00
and 30 minutes past the hour and route 3 running at 30 minute
intervals and passing the stop at 20 and 50 minutes past the hour.
From the point of view of a passenger boarding at any of the stops
on common sections, there is a 10-minute frequency. The passenger
has, rightly, no interest in the technical issue of whether routes
1, 2 and 3 are operated by buses allocated to one service registration
or to three separate registration documents. In many cases the
actual allocation of buses and routes to registration documents
is a product of history—and, from the point of view of the
passenger, this has no effect.
When networks are revised, we take the opportunity
to review the registration documents and may decide to simplify
the technical issue of service registrations as part of the network
revision process. This can mean that, for example, we will move
the buses currently registered on the route 1 registration and
the route 2 registration so that all trips are now registered
on the route 3 registration; a simple reading of the registration
changes will make it appear that we are reducing two services
and increasing one when there will be no effect on an individual
passenger.
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