Public Service Vehicles (Open Data) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I believe that what the Minister has said will broadly be welcomed by the bus industry. There is one question. The responsibility for making the information available should rest with the operator, and I believe there is some confusion about whether local transport authorities should be responsible. I think that responsibility for the registration of the route and the details should lie with the traffic commissioner.

I take this opportunity to remind the Minister that bus use outside London is still very low and much encouragement needs to be given to people to get back on the buses. In some places there are applications to expand city-centre car parking to cater for the extra cars on the road. It would be a pity if the message sent out is that you should not use the bus. It should be “Please use the bus”, because many operators—I can instance three—have got apps that tell you which journeys carry spare seats if you wish to use the bus.