The Beccles Sunday Club demonstrates the need for local community transport infrastructure. They don't have the resources to operate their own buses but without a local Community Transport Operator and their volunteer drivers to provide buses twice a month, they could not provide these vital services.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Beccles Sunday Club
The Beccles Sunday Club demonstrates the need for local community transport infrastructure. They don't have the resources to operate their own buses but without a local Community Transport Operator and their volunteer drivers to provide buses twice a month, they could not provide these vital services.
Weight rules put brakes on rural buses
Updated May 2014
Or why your Nan drives a country bus...
Any busman will tell you profits from operating country buses are small and volatile, which is why many rural routes depend on public subsidy or can only be provided by volunteer-run non-profit Community Transport Operators.
Halesworth Area Community Transport Ltd is constituted under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965. It currently operates the 511 bus route in Halesworth, Suffolk on a non-profit basis with its own 16 passenger coach and a 15 passenger minibus.
The 511 Halesworth and Holton circular route has been going since 1993 but despite capacity averaging at 88%, its fare revenue shortfall has to be filled by vigorous fundraising and local sponsorship, currently by the Halesworth Golf Club and the Central England Cooperative Society.
HACT also takes disabled passengers twice a week to a day-care centre and provides vehicles with drivers for hire by local community groups for events and outings.
Both services are operated by volunteers and on average each gives 15 hours per month, which is an exceptionally high commitment for the Third Sector. Some do more, some less, each does what they can.
The issue they wish to raise public awareness about is that there is a declining supply of volunteer drivers like them. In every month's schedule 10 out of 50 driver 'slots' go unfilled so HACT volunteers frequently forgo social engagements or family commitments rather than let the public down, a situation that is quite unsustainable. Just ten more drivers joining HACT would ensure it could run without any volunteers feeling obliged to give more time than they really want to (not that they'd ever say so...)
The problem is, in order to drive the kind of minibuses used by most community transport operators, a volunteer driver must have a 'D1' category on their license or pass a second PSV driving test, but the D1 driver license classification ended with the EU harmonisation of bus regulations in 1997.
So if you got your driving license before 1997, you probably have a D1-entitled license. If you passed your test after 1997, you won't but will have a category 'B' instead.
Therefore if you passed your test before 1997, you can volunteer to drive for any of HACT's services. If you passed your test after 1997, you can't drive a minibus with 9-16 seats that is over 4.25 tonnes (the MAM) until you pass a PSV test. Thus - and this is the crux of the problem - services like the 511 can't be driven on a category B license, the class of license which most people now hold. You can see in previous posts on this blog how much I have researched the legislation trying to find a way around this.
This situation is an unintended consequence of the Second EC Directive on the Driving Licence (91/439/EEC). To quote the CTA handbook: The Directive attempts to harmonise the rules across the EU as part of the “single market” initiative. In fact, UK rules are particularly complicated reflecting the different history of our transport industry. Of particular relevance is that no other EU state has a not-for-profit sector based largely on minibus use quite as developed as that of the UK. In the early 1990s CTA (with the NUS, Help the Aged and others) was part of the successful Mobility Alliance campaign - which included a mass rally of UK minibuses in Brussels - to prevent second tests for all minibus drivers and protect the viability of the sector and the position of employees in community groups, local authorities and the NHS. The UK government secured important concessions announced in late 1994. In April 1996 the implementation date of July 1st 1996 was postponed for six months until January 1st 1997.
Perhaps in the political horse-trading someone settled on 4.25 tonne MAM which is OK for a minibus used for schools or social clubs but is not for rural buses. The transcript of parlimentary debates on this issue is illuminating.
The solution isn't a case of operating these routes with different vehicles. There are now very few minibuses on the market robust enough to be reliable which have all of the required safety and disabled-access equipment under the 4.25 tonne MAM limit. Minibuses light enough might do for a social club outing but are not suitable for the rigors of rural bus routes.
HACT recently researched the specifications of a replacement bus for the 511 route and it found that a van conversion makes a very poor rural bus. The floors are too high, doors and lifts are compromised, the wheel humps take up legroom, there isn't enough headroom and so on. Rural buses are not like the behemoths plying their trade in the cities, they have to be small and light because of the narrow roads and weak bridges they travel over.
But there are plenty of suitable vehicles, typically custom bodied on a van chassis, in the 5 to 7 tonne MAM range that D1-entitled volunteers have no difficulty operating once they have undergone the MiDAS training that HACT gives them. How is a driver licensed in December 1996 competent to drive a seven tonne minibus and one in January 1997 is not? It is reasonable that both first have to be over 21 and licensed for two years.
HACT are not alone in this problem. The Variety Club of Great Britain is a leading customer for minibuses for its 'Sunshine Coaches' which it donates to schools and community groups working with children but it doesn't offer a minibus to groups that can be driven by 'ordinary' drivers.
To get around the PSV, some transport operators use older and lighter vehicles that are less fuel efficient and less accessible, or eight-seater minibuses, which are regulated differently but the operation of eight-seater minibuses is even more uneconomic.
Many rural areas offer volunteer 'community car' schemes as a solution to isolation. A HACT volunteer typically drives 42 people per day. Why must a efficient 1:42 volunteer/user ratio be reduced to 1:8 or even 1:1 as a community car scheme when overheads practically stay the same? Ironically, smaller buses also cannot meet demand. When HACT operated a once-weekly 532 service between Laxfield and Halesworth, the 16 seats available were consistently filled. Inexplicably the service was re-tendered by Suffolk County Council to another operator who switched to an 11 seat minibus and the service became over-subscribed. This angered the passengers who used to board at intermediate stops as they now couldn't board because the bus was full. Those passengers are unlikely to return to using a rural bus service as quickly as they were barred from it.
The number of D1-entitled drivers nationally cannot be known without a Freedom of Information Request to the DVLA but from their published figures of driver ages, it seems that pre-1997 license holders in the peak volunteer ages of 41 to 65 could diminish by more than 60% in the next decade before consideration of any health factors removing their qualification to drive a minibus. Not everyone passes their driving test at age 17 but if they did, the youngest D1-entitled driver is now 33. If they passed their test in their mid-to-late twenties, they are in their forties now.
Since these regulations were introduced the pool of D1 drivers has diminished slowly but the rate of decline is rapidly increasing as this cohort reach the cut-off date for requiring medical exams or being barred completely. Meantime, disability access equipment and safety design have increased the weight of minibuses and the demand for community transport is increasing as the post-war generation ages and they can't drive any more. A decade ago the DETR forecast 25% bus passenger growth amongst the elderly. While public subsidy of commercial rural transport is withdrawn, it's ironic that the service older people need most can only be provided by older people themselves.
HACT feel they have fairly saturated the local area with the message that they offer volunteers a very convenient and effective way to make a big difference to their community but they find D1-qualified volunteers are scarce. Recruitment efforts bring in potential drivers in the B category but these volunteers, not always younger than the D1-entitled, cannot be utilised where they are needed most on rural routes.
The Community Transport Association's Strategic Review of Training in 2009 recognised that the supply of D1 qualified volunteer drivers would gradually diminish over time.
It said: "The 1997 change in driver licensing has created a ‘time bomb’ of potential shortages of minibus drivers both for paid employment with local authorities, community transport operators, etc. and volunteers…"
In the 2009 review the CTA expected that their community driver training programme would address the need for people to obtain a PSV driving licence, though the revenue it published from the courses it offered between 2006-2009 indicates this cost £900 per volunteer. Vendors have provided quotes at a 'charity rate' for PCV training at £600 per volunteer if they pass first time. Few do.
Adding a PSV to a B license involves taking a medical (£100 - 150), applying for a PSV provisional entitlement and then taking the theory and the practical driving test, let alone the lessons with an instructor before that.
I recently took up the offer of PSV training funded by Suffolk County Council. However I had to travel to the Chilterns and stay 3 nights in a B&B. The total bill for training, test fees, travel and subsistence was easily in excess of £2000.
This is a financial and human resources overhead that most CTOs cannot afford. For every hour a HACT volunteer is driving, another 70 minutes is being expended on publicity, policies and legal compliance, vehicle maintenance, banking and accounts, volunteer recruitment and training, route and vehicle licensing, passenger assistance, committee meetings, facility and office maintenance, route development, council meetings and fundraising. The Task Force on Red Tape highlighted a case study where every eight hours of instruction required two hours of form filling. Most of these non-driving tasks are required by legislation; even bus washing is a condition of Section 22 operation. The goodwill of prospective volunteers is unlikely to stretch to several days of attendance at driving test centres and a doctor's surgery unless they have an ulterior motive.
Even if HACT had extra funding to train volunteers to pass the PSV, it would be unlikely to retain these volunteers for long, as PSV-qualified drivers are in demand (because of the same training cost burden) in the commercial transport industry. Voluntary organisations cannot compel volunteers to repay the cost of training if they leave, as legally they cease to be volunteers. Another local CTO told HACT informally that it cannot and would not pay for volunteers to take a PSV as it could not retain them. Their minibus DRT service uses paid drivers and its recruiting for its 'community car' scheme rarely finds volunteers with a D1 entitlement.
Some would debate the merits of various community transport models but serving Suffolk's rural communities requires all of them. CTOs give excellent value for money and government health policy recognises the value of supporting independent living. Without any transport to access the services they need; the shops, the doctor, the post office; people's needs of every kind become acute and treating acute needs costs a lot more than community transport.
The enormous cost of training drivers for a PSV cannot be passed by CTOs onto rural bus passengers as most are operating routes that are commercially unviable but critical to the health of society. If a CTO was resourced well enough to train drivers for the PSV, it would likely be a large organisation with significant overheads and paid management (as some are). It would have to be a bureaucracy-expert box-ticking social enterprise operating county-wide and indistinguishable from a commercial bus company. That wouldn't be so attractive to the volunteer who just wants to help so that people can live independently. In human management terms, such economy of scale could lose the benefits Schumacher's maxim: "small is beautiful" and the adhocracy structure posited by Mintzberg and the empowering 'purpose' of Bartlett and Ghoshal.
The CTA's advice on licensing community bus drivers recognises that CTOs must consider the diminishing supply of D1 qualified volunteer drivers: "heavier buses are quite common and operators will have to think carefully before either buying smaller buses in the future or making sure that new volunteers are qualified to drive..."
Therefore HACT would like to suggest to anyone concerned that legislation is enacted as soon as possible to remove the MAM weight limit of 4.25 tonnes for 9-16 passenger minibuses operated under section 19 and 22 in rural areas by CTOs so they can be driven on a category B license just for this purpose. There is very little transference of risk or decrease in passenger safety as CTOs already train their volunteers through the MiDAS scheme.
This doesn't call for an exemption to apply to schools and social clubs too (unless they have a need for one) as there are good reasons for requiring a PSV qualification in some situations. Once upon a time an employee, schoolteacher or volunteer could have been handed the keys to a unfamilar minibus and driven for unlimited distances and hours but most rural bus drivers are very familiar with their vehicles, the local road conditions and the hazards on their defined routes. Their usually regular frequent volunteering for a CTO enables the responsible operator to maintain safety standards through the MiDAS training and certificate programmes.
Another option could be to enable a MiDAS certificate to be a qualification to drive some heavier vehicles for community transport or make the PCV training and examinations free to community transport volunteers (if they could be retained). Your own reasoning must surmise which is the lightest burden on the public purse or most likely to pass through the legislative process.
If you could also write to your MP to suggest the MAM weight limit is raised for community transport, that would be a great help. You can write to your MP at www.writetothem.com
The Government isn't going to roll over about this. I have had lots of waffling letters in response. I suspect it is beholden to more powerful interests who think Community Transport has an unfair advantage and see it as competition. Below is the response my MP Therese Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal) gave me after I wrote to Richard Drax MP when he debated rural transport in April 2014. Somehow we must change the government's mind, or change our government.
Or why your Nan drives a country bus...
Any busman will tell you profits from operating country buses are small and volatile, which is why many rural routes depend on public subsidy or can only be provided by volunteer-run non-profit Community Transport Operators.
Halesworth Area Community Transport Ltd is constituted under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965. It currently operates the 511 bus route in Halesworth, Suffolk on a non-profit basis with its own 16 passenger coach and a 15 passenger minibus.
The 511 Halesworth and Holton circular route has been going since 1993 but despite capacity averaging at 88%, its fare revenue shortfall has to be filled by vigorous fundraising and local sponsorship, currently by the Halesworth Golf Club and the Central England Cooperative Society.
HACT also takes disabled passengers twice a week to a day-care centre and provides vehicles with drivers for hire by local community groups for events and outings.
Both services are operated by volunteers and on average each gives 15 hours per month, which is an exceptionally high commitment for the Third Sector. Some do more, some less, each does what they can.
The issue they wish to raise public awareness about is that there is a declining supply of volunteer drivers like them. In every month's schedule 10 out of 50 driver 'slots' go unfilled so HACT volunteers frequently forgo social engagements or family commitments rather than let the public down, a situation that is quite unsustainable. Just ten more drivers joining HACT would ensure it could run without any volunteers feeling obliged to give more time than they really want to (not that they'd ever say so...)
The problem is, in order to drive the kind of minibuses used by most community transport operators, a volunteer driver must have a 'D1' category on their license or pass a second PSV driving test, but the D1 driver license classification ended with the EU harmonisation of bus regulations in 1997.
So if you got your driving license before 1997, you probably have a D1-entitled license. If you passed your test after 1997, you won't but will have a category 'B' instead.
Therefore if you passed your test before 1997, you can volunteer to drive for any of HACT's services. If you passed your test after 1997, you can't drive a minibus with 9-16 seats that is over 4.25 tonnes (the MAM) until you pass a PSV test. Thus - and this is the crux of the problem - services like the 511 can't be driven on a category B license, the class of license which most people now hold. You can see in previous posts on this blog how much I have researched the legislation trying to find a way around this.
This situation is an unintended consequence of the Second EC Directive on the Driving Licence (91/439/EEC). To quote the CTA handbook: The Directive attempts to harmonise the rules across the EU as part of the “single market” initiative. In fact, UK rules are particularly complicated reflecting the different history of our transport industry. Of particular relevance is that no other EU state has a not-for-profit sector based largely on minibus use quite as developed as that of the UK. In the early 1990s CTA (with the NUS, Help the Aged and others) was part of the successful Mobility Alliance campaign - which included a mass rally of UK minibuses in Brussels - to prevent second tests for all minibus drivers and protect the viability of the sector and the position of employees in community groups, local authorities and the NHS. The UK government secured important concessions announced in late 1994. In April 1996 the implementation date of July 1st 1996 was postponed for six months until January 1st 1997.
Perhaps in the political horse-trading someone settled on 4.25 tonne MAM which is OK for a minibus used for schools or social clubs but is not for rural buses. The transcript of parlimentary debates on this issue is illuminating.
The solution isn't a case of operating these routes with different vehicles. There are now very few minibuses on the market robust enough to be reliable which have all of the required safety and disabled-access equipment under the 4.25 tonne MAM limit. Minibuses light enough might do for a social club outing but are not suitable for the rigors of rural bus routes.
HACT recently researched the specifications of a replacement bus for the 511 route and it found that a van conversion makes a very poor rural bus. The floors are too high, doors and lifts are compromised, the wheel humps take up legroom, there isn't enough headroom and so on. Rural buses are not like the behemoths plying their trade in the cities, they have to be small and light because of the narrow roads and weak bridges they travel over.
But there are plenty of suitable vehicles, typically custom bodied on a van chassis, in the 5 to 7 tonne MAM range that D1-entitled volunteers have no difficulty operating once they have undergone the MiDAS training that HACT gives them. How is a driver licensed in December 1996 competent to drive a seven tonne minibus and one in January 1997 is not? It is reasonable that both first have to be over 21 and licensed for two years.
HACT are not alone in this problem. The Variety Club of Great Britain is a leading customer for minibuses for its 'Sunshine Coaches' which it donates to schools and community groups working with children but it doesn't offer a minibus to groups that can be driven by 'ordinary' drivers.
To get around the PSV, some transport operators use older and lighter vehicles that are less fuel efficient and less accessible, or eight-seater minibuses, which are regulated differently but the operation of eight-seater minibuses is even more uneconomic.
Many rural areas offer volunteer 'community car' schemes as a solution to isolation. A HACT volunteer typically drives 42 people per day. Why must a efficient 1:42 volunteer/user ratio be reduced to 1:8 or even 1:1 as a community car scheme when overheads practically stay the same? Ironically, smaller buses also cannot meet demand. When HACT operated a once-weekly 532 service between Laxfield and Halesworth, the 16 seats available were consistently filled. Inexplicably the service was re-tendered by Suffolk County Council to another operator who switched to an 11 seat minibus and the service became over-subscribed. This angered the passengers who used to board at intermediate stops as they now couldn't board because the bus was full. Those passengers are unlikely to return to using a rural bus service as quickly as they were barred from it.
The number of D1-entitled drivers nationally cannot be known without a Freedom of Information Request to the DVLA but from their published figures of driver ages, it seems that pre-1997 license holders in the peak volunteer ages of 41 to 65 could diminish by more than 60% in the next decade before consideration of any health factors removing their qualification to drive a minibus. Not everyone passes their driving test at age 17 but if they did, the youngest D1-entitled driver is now 33. If they passed their test in their mid-to-late twenties, they are in their forties now.
Since these regulations were introduced the pool of D1 drivers has diminished slowly but the rate of decline is rapidly increasing as this cohort reach the cut-off date for requiring medical exams or being barred completely. Meantime, disability access equipment and safety design have increased the weight of minibuses and the demand for community transport is increasing as the post-war generation ages and they can't drive any more. A decade ago the DETR forecast 25% bus passenger growth amongst the elderly. While public subsidy of commercial rural transport is withdrawn, it's ironic that the service older people need most can only be provided by older people themselves.
HACT feel they have fairly saturated the local area with the message that they offer volunteers a very convenient and effective way to make a big difference to their community but they find D1-qualified volunteers are scarce. Recruitment efforts bring in potential drivers in the B category but these volunteers, not always younger than the D1-entitled, cannot be utilised where they are needed most on rural routes.
The Community Transport Association's Strategic Review of Training in 2009 recognised that the supply of D1 qualified volunteer drivers would gradually diminish over time.
It said: "The 1997 change in driver licensing has created a ‘time bomb’ of potential shortages of minibus drivers both for paid employment with local authorities, community transport operators, etc. and volunteers…"
In the 2009 review the CTA expected that their community driver training programme would address the need for people to obtain a PSV driving licence, though the revenue it published from the courses it offered between 2006-2009 indicates this cost £900 per volunteer. Vendors have provided quotes at a 'charity rate' for PCV training at £600 per volunteer if they pass first time. Few do.
Adding a PSV to a B license involves taking a medical (£100 - 150), applying for a PSV provisional entitlement and then taking the theory and the practical driving test, let alone the lessons with an instructor before that.
I recently took up the offer of PSV training funded by Suffolk County Council. However I had to travel to the Chilterns and stay 3 nights in a B&B. The total bill for training, test fees, travel and subsistence was easily in excess of £2000.
Even if HACT had extra funding to train volunteers to pass the PSV, it would be unlikely to retain these volunteers for long, as PSV-qualified drivers are in demand (because of the same training cost burden) in the commercial transport industry. Voluntary organisations cannot compel volunteers to repay the cost of training if they leave, as legally they cease to be volunteers. Another local CTO told HACT informally that it cannot and would not pay for volunteers to take a PSV as it could not retain them. Their minibus DRT service uses paid drivers and its recruiting for its 'community car' scheme rarely finds volunteers with a D1 entitlement.
Some would debate the merits of various community transport models but serving Suffolk's rural communities requires all of them. CTOs give excellent value for money and government health policy recognises the value of supporting independent living. Without any transport to access the services they need; the shops, the doctor, the post office; people's needs of every kind become acute and treating acute needs costs a lot more than community transport.
The enormous cost of training drivers for a PSV cannot be passed by CTOs onto rural bus passengers as most are operating routes that are commercially unviable but critical to the health of society. If a CTO was resourced well enough to train drivers for the PSV, it would likely be a large organisation with significant overheads and paid management (as some are). It would have to be a bureaucracy-expert box-ticking social enterprise operating county-wide and indistinguishable from a commercial bus company. That wouldn't be so attractive to the volunteer who just wants to help so that people can live independently. In human management terms, such economy of scale could lose the benefits Schumacher's maxim: "small is beautiful" and the adhocracy structure posited by Mintzberg and the empowering 'purpose' of Bartlett and Ghoshal.
The CTA's advice on licensing community bus drivers recognises that CTOs must consider the diminishing supply of D1 qualified volunteer drivers: "heavier buses are quite common and operators will have to think carefully before either buying smaller buses in the future or making sure that new volunteers are qualified to drive..."
Therefore HACT would like to suggest to anyone concerned that legislation is enacted as soon as possible to remove the MAM weight limit of 4.25 tonnes for 9-16 passenger minibuses operated under section 19 and 22 in rural areas by CTOs so they can be driven on a category B license just for this purpose. There is very little transference of risk or decrease in passenger safety as CTOs already train their volunteers through the MiDAS scheme.
This doesn't call for an exemption to apply to schools and social clubs too (unless they have a need for one) as there are good reasons for requiring a PSV qualification in some situations. Once upon a time an employee, schoolteacher or volunteer could have been handed the keys to a unfamilar minibus and driven for unlimited distances and hours but most rural bus drivers are very familiar with their vehicles, the local road conditions and the hazards on their defined routes. Their usually regular frequent volunteering for a CTO enables the responsible operator to maintain safety standards through the MiDAS training and certificate programmes.
Another option could be to enable a MiDAS certificate to be a qualification to drive some heavier vehicles for community transport or make the PCV training and examinations free to community transport volunteers (if they could be retained). Your own reasoning must surmise which is the lightest burden on the public purse or most likely to pass through the legislative process.
If you could also write to your MP to suggest the MAM weight limit is raised for community transport, that would be a great help. You can write to your MP at www.writetothem.com
The Government isn't going to roll over about this. I have had lots of waffling letters in response. I suspect it is beholden to more powerful interests who think Community Transport has an unfair advantage and see it as competition. Below is the response my MP Therese Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal) gave me after I wrote to Richard Drax MP when he debated rural transport in April 2014. Somehow we must change the government's mind, or change our government.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Sat Nav Correction
If your community is concerned about drivers following a sat-nav taking large vehicles down narrow roads, you can report this and other issues via the web to Navteq, the main publisher of sat-nav databases.
Browse to http://mapreporter.navteq.com
Use the search box to find the place you want to report on or click-and-drag the map.
On the left of the web page are 4 main categories:
• Point of Interest. Here you can record or make changes to a shop, business, or other Point of Interest (POI). You can promote your community by listing local businesses as people often use their sat-nav as a 'Yellow Pages'.
• Address Marker/Location. Make changes to the location of a house or building.
• Road or Road Feature. Here you can add, edit or remove roads and road features such as signs, one-ways, or restrictions.
• Other not listed.
But if you right-click on a road itself, a dialogue box pops up:
• Edit details of this road
• Exit/Roundabout is new
• Turn restrictions have changed
• Signs are different
• Other categories
Click ‘edit details of this road’ and you will get a choice of:
• Edit Road Segment Details
• Data is correct, I want to report something else
If you click 'road segment' you can report any one-way restrictions, change the class of road, note any vehicle restrictions, the type of road surface and describe the house numbering. Quite often this data will be blank and so you will be providing a useful service to complete it.
Navteq classifies roads in their database as Class 1, 2, 3, 4. This corresponds to A, B, C, D roads. In the UK, only A and B are officially designated on signage although Highways Department will refer internally to C and D and Unclassified roads too.
If you click 'something else' you can add advice about road width restrictions or errors on the map that are not reportable elsewhere.
You can also attach photos of any errors or issues.
It is probably best to be concise and restrict your report to geographic information that can reasonably be reflected in a digital map. Therefore it is probably not much use to report “this road has a problem with speeding…” while reporting “the road is only eight feet wide at this point…” is more useful to the digital mapmakers.
Some sat-navs also use data from Tele Atlas. You can enter less geographic information on their website but this database is more detailed in POI categories. http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com/mapfeedback/index.php
To research or record local features, or if you want to use maps without paying a hefty copyright fee, you can contribute to a global ‘wiki’ map http://www.openstreetmap.org/ where you can record features of interest.
Monday, 5 September 2011
Can you drive a minibus - part 3
If you have been following this blog, you will probably be shaking your head with disbelief that I am incredibly thick or incredulous that rules can be so complex to understand.
In my last enquiry I asked the CTA a direct question, hoping for unequivocal answer:
Q: If a non-profit CTO runs a staged, scheduled bus route or DRT service with volunteer drivers of 16 seat minibuses with a MAM under 3500kg which takes fares from the public, the volunteer drivers can do this with a Class B license if the vehicles have section 19 permits with a Class E exemption, when there is no other service in a rural area?
The answer seems to be what I was hoping for:
A: Yes, if the service fits with the aims and objectives of the organisation, and the service was operated under a Section 19 or 22 permit using minibuses, so long as all the issues of the voluntary derogation from the EU legislation with regards to driving licences are adhered to then a B category licence holder can drive as a volunteer and collect fares.
For a Class E permit to be granted the issuing body has to be satisfied that the organisation has in place arrangements to ensure that passengers genuinely fall within Class E – the main point of being that the users are not members of the general public but residents of a local community and that this would preclude visitors to the area using the service (unlike if the service were operated under Section 22). Another thing to remember is that if a public service were to start operating in the same area then a Section 19 Class E service would have to cease.
The next edition of the CTA Journal is focused on Section 22 operations so you may find that an interesting read.
However, there's always something waiting to trip you up. The vehicle weight has to be the MAM weight (maximum authorised mass) not the unladen weight. Class B can drive section 19 with MAM of under 4250 Kg for an accessible minibus so a bus with 17 people (16 passengers + driver) at 100 Kg each has to weigh 2250 Kg unladen with the disabled lift fitted, then there’s the weight of the fuel, carpets, first aid kit, driver’s lunch and passenger’s shopping to factor in. This is an incredibly ambitious figure for a minibus.
It turns out that only one of the vehicles my local CTO operates can be driven by a Class B driver, an old 14 seat VW minibus. Their two other vehicles; both newer 16 seat Mercedes' weigh 3620kg and 3280kg unladen respectively. It seems this pitfall has troubled CTOs for a while. There are very few minibuses with 16 seats under this weight limit available and the compromises manufacturers or coachbuilders make to save weight affects their durability.
It turns out that only one of the vehicles my local CTO operates can be driven by a Class B driver, an old 14 seat VW minibus. Their two other vehicles; both newer 16 seat Mercedes' weigh 3620kg and 3280kg unladen respectively. It seems this pitfall has troubled CTOs for a while. There are very few minibuses with 16 seats under this weight limit available and the compromises manufacturers or coachbuilders make to save weight affects their durability.
http://www.ctauk.org/UserFiles/Documents/AdviceInformation/ProblemSolvers/2008_July_Aug_Overloading.pdf
Once again have updated my chart to reflect my current understanding. I hope that the CTA or VOSA will respond to my invitation to provide their own and so definitive flow-chart around this question.
Once again have updated my chart to reflect my current understanding. I hope that the CTA or VOSA will respond to my invitation to provide their own and so definitive flow-chart around this question.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Can you drive a minibus - part 2
I wrote yesterday about my concerns about recruiting volunteers for community transport operators as most volunteers today only have Class B licenses and so cannot carry fare-paying passengers without first taking a very expensive PSV course and examinations to get a D1 endorsement. Drivers licensed before 1997 automatically have a D1 endorsement.
On this topic I have asked the CTA, experts in community transport development at Suffolk County Council and in several other places and I got a confusing range of answers. Most of the literature or advice I got came down into this:
A Section 19 permit under the 1986 Transport Act would cover a minibus for an elderly day care centre so a Class B volunteer driver can drive them.
Section 22 of the act covers volunteer-driven buses for public fare-paying passengers such as the Halesworth 511 service, thus a Class B volunteer driver can’t drive them.
I understood that if you run a bus and allow the public to board and charge fares, you HAVE to be section 22, so B class licenses can’t drive these community buses because under section 19 you can’t charge fares or pick up the public. At least that is how I understood it and everyone else said much the same.
However, looking further, it seems there is an “E-class” exemption to the section 19 regulations enacted in 2009 so that if a section 19 service is the only way a rural community can have a bus, then a service permitted under section 19 can pick up the public and charge fares, so long as the driver isn’t paid and the service is not-for-profit. So I must presume then that class B licenses can drive fare-paying passengers if their section 19 permit is written to cover E class passengers.
Here’s the relevant bit of regulations from a VOSA leaflet: http://www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/repository/PSV%20385%2018%20November%2009.pdf
I understood that if you run a bus and allow the public to board and charge fares, you HAVE to be section 22, so B class licenses can’t drive these community buses because under section 19 you can’t charge fares or pick up the public. At least that is how I understood it and everyone else said much the same.
However, looking further, it seems there is an “E-class” exemption to the section 19 regulations enacted in 2009 so that if a section 19 service is the only way a rural community can have a bus, then a service permitted under section 19 can pick up the public and charge fares, so long as the driver isn’t paid and the service is not-for-profit. So I must presume then that class B licenses can drive fare-paying passengers if their section 19 permit is written to cover E class passengers.
Here’s the relevant bit of regulations from a VOSA leaflet: http://www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/repository/PSV%20385%2018%20November%2009.pdf
Passenger transport provided under Section 19 or Section 22 permits
(Revised 2009 PSV 385 - 01)
Who may be carried on the vehicle:
A vehicle being used under a section 19 permit must not be used to carry members of the general public. Each section 19 permit, and corresponding disc, will indicate the particular classes of persons who may be carried.
Each permit and disc will specify one or more of the following classes of person:
A, B, C, D, etc.
Class E - Persons living within a geographically defined local community, or group of communities, whose public transport needs are not met other than by virtue of services provided by the body holding the permit;
Class F -Any other classes of persons specified in the permit.
For example, a permit issued to a scout group might indicate that only members of the scout group and persons assisting or supervising them may be carried. In that case the vehicle could not be used under the permit to carry persons who had no association with the scout group. Alternatively, such a permit may state that vehicles used under the permit may carry members of a girl guide group, as well as the scout group, which would then enable girl guides to travel on vehicles used under the permit.
If your organisation wishes to have a permit permitting the carriage of persons in Class E or Class F you will need to supply further information with your application.
For Class E you should clearly state what the local community is, for example it may be residents of a village or group of villages, or other isolated rural communities. You should be aware that failure to supply sufficient information may lead to a delay in the processing of your application or even its refusal.
Section 19 permits and isolated communities
Vehicles used under a section 19 permit may not carry members of the general public, but as a result of changes which came into force on 6th April 2009 the law now provides greater clarity about the use of section 19 permits to meet the transport needs of people living in rural and other isolated communities. The key change is the introduction of the new Class E mentioned above, which sets out two conditions. VOSA consider that, where these two conditions are met, the service is not being provided for the "general public".
First, where a permit authorises the carriage of persons in Class E, the permit will specify the geographically-defined local community, or group of communities, in question. The legislation is not specific about the size of area that may be specified, but any such area must be clearly local in nature. This will need to be considered on a case-by-case basis, but in general an area encompassing a group of neighbouring villages is likely to be "local" in nature, while an area covering a number of towns is unlikely to be.
Secondly, people are only eligible under Class E if their public transport needs would not be met other than by the services provided by the permit-holder. An example might be that of a large retail park in a town at which a number of people living in outlying villages are employed. If there is no public transport which employees could use to get to the retail park for, say, 8 o'clock in the morning and back again at 7 o'clock in the evening, a body may be formed by the employees (not by the businesses on their behalf) to provide appropriate transport under a section 19 permit, using Class E.
The Class E entitlement would only fall if public transport which would meet the needs of those employees were to be provided. So, if a new bus service was introduced providing services from the villages to a local market town twice a week, our view is that it would not affect the services operated under the permit because those services would not meet the public transport needs of the employees at the retail park. But if a daily bus service were to be introduced, serving all the places served by the permit holder from 6 o'clock in the morning until 9 o' clock at night, then our view is that the permit could no longer continue to be used under Class E for that particular group of people.
This revelation, if my understanding is correct, does not detract from my concerns though; that the PSV is far too expensive for CTOs to support and there are many areas, such as rural/urban fringes that would probably not be able to classify their operations under Section 19 E class but without them, they would probably have very poor public transport from a commercial operator.
As I have spent many, many unpaid hours trying to understand all this regulation just to answer one simple question: “can I volunteer for my community bus?” I really think the matter of simplification of regulations should be looked into or better explained by the CTA/VOSA or whichever quango is responsible.
And, given the unpaid time I have spent working all this out, it’s no wonder many in my field think the Big Society will struggle to find enough volunteers.
And, given the unpaid time I have spent working all this out, it’s no wonder many in my field think the Big Society will struggle to find enough volunteers.
I will be updating my chart anon.
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Can you drive a minibus?
From leaflets supplied by the Community Transport Association and advice of colleagues I have drawn this flowchart which, although not totally definitive, I hope conveys the same information as the chart I got from the CTA to answer the question of what a volunteer can do with their license to drive a minibus for a community transport operator (CTO).
My intent is to enable anyone manning a volunteer recruitment stall, such as at a village fete, could determine who can drive a minibus for section 19 or section 22 operations, both of which my local CTO provides, or should be steered to a community car scheme.
Without this, every volunteer has to do all of the homework I have done so far and will likely feel it is all unnecessarily complicated. I have asked the CTA to produce an official easy-to-understand chart like this or confirm this one is correct so I can publish this more widely.
A volunteer-run CTO operating a section 19 service can't charge a fare or stop at bus stops, as section 19 is for services like collecting people for a day-centre and this CAN be done by a volunteer with a B license. Any service that takes the fare-paying public has to be run under section 22* and that prevents anyone without a D1 licence driving the bus whether they are paid or not and only people licensed before 1997 can get a D1 (101) endorsement without taking the PSV test.
* although there is apparently an 'Class E' exemption for rural areas.
It is quite apparent to me from my role as a volunteer with my local CTO that there is going to be great difficulty ahead as the pool of D1 (101) entitled drivers dwindles over time because there is no other pathway at present to enable a volunteer who didn’t take their driving test before 1997 (so couldn’t be any younger than 31 years old now) to operate a vehicle on a section 22 route (one taking fares) without completing PSV training.
The cost of this training is a very minimum of £1000 per person and since a CTO might need a roster of 20 volunteer drivers per route, this is an unsupportable burden on the transport services that rural areas depend on. Volunteer-run CTOs provide vital services in rural areas where commercial operations are unsustainable.
I have asked my MP Therese Coffey to consider the need for legislation to correct this but I need to be absolutely sure I have my facts straight but at the moment this is how I understand the situation without bringing all the ramifications of vehicle size and weight into it.
I looked on the DVLA website for some licensing statistics but getting the actual numbers of D1 and B category drivers would take a FOI request but you can get a rough estimate based on that non-photo licenses are likely to be from before 1997- so D1 eligble - and photo licenses will be after 1997, so restricted to B category. If we presume similar numbers of drivers continue to be licensed and presume numbers of 70 year olds driving now will be decimated by health issues in their 80's; in just a decade's time we shall see a huge drop in available volunteers of active working age, just as the population bubble of elderly people (who will depend even more on public transport when they cannot drive) begins to swell.
The cost of this training is a very minimum of £1000 per person and since a CTO might need a roster of 20 volunteer drivers per route, this is an unsupportable burden on the transport services that rural areas depend on. Volunteer-run CTOs provide vital services in rural areas where commercial operations are unsustainable.
I have asked my MP Therese Coffey to consider the need for legislation to correct this but I need to be absolutely sure I have my facts straight but at the moment this is how I understand the situation without bringing all the ramifications of vehicle size and weight into it.
I looked on the DVLA website for some licensing statistics but getting the actual numbers of D1 and B category drivers would take a FOI request but you can get a rough estimate based on that non-photo licenses are likely to be from before 1997- so D1 eligble - and photo licenses will be after 1997, so restricted to B category. If we presume similar numbers of drivers continue to be licensed and presume numbers of 70 year olds driving now will be decimated by health issues in their 80's; in just a decade's time we shall see a huge drop in available volunteers of active working age, just as the population bubble of elderly people (who will depend even more on public transport when they cannot drive) begins to swell.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
what can I drive (draft)
Here in the UK we have very complicated driving licence legislation which results to the EU trying to have the same requirements across all EU states but then having the ability for member states to opt out of bits of the legislation and the fact that the UK has, and had at the time the EU were trying to align all countries, a very strong and well established voluntary sector which relied on drivers being able to drive minibuses. This is then compounded slightly with the size of vehicles which drivers are able to drive.
I hope the following may shine some light on to the current situation, but this is dependent on any vehicle insurance restrictions of the organisation you volunteer for and also any internal policies they have in place.
I am only looking at permit operations here i.e. Section 19 and Section 22
| | Size of Permit vehicle – in passenger seats | ||
| | MPV ( upto 8 seats) (Only Section 19 operation allowed) | Minibus (9 – 16) (Operated under Section 19 or 22) | Bus ( above 16 seats) (Operated under Section 19 or 22) |
| Volunteer driver (B cat only) | Can drive | Can drive *with restrictions | Cannot drive |
| Paid driver (B cat only) | Can drive | Cannot drive | Cannot drive |
| Volunteer driver (D1 (101) cat) | Can drive | Can drive | Cannot drive |
| Paid driver (D1 (101) cat) | Can drive | Can drive | Cannot drive |
| Volunteer driver (D1 cat - PCV) | Can drive | Can drive | Cannot drive |
| Paid driver (D1 cat - PCV) | Can drive | Can drive | Cannot drive |
| Volunteer driver (D cat - PCV) | Can drive | Can drive | Can drive |
| Paid driver (D cat - PCV) | Can drive | Can drive | Can drive |
*Restrictions being the driver:
· Over 21 years old
· If over 70 years old they have passed a PCV medical which shows on their driving licence with a code of 79 (NFHR) which extends their ability to drive a minibus for a further 3 years
· Cannot tow a trailer
· Can receive no other consideration for driving other than out-of-pocket expenses
· Can only drive a vehicle with a Maximum Authorised Mass (MAM) or Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) no more than 3500kg or 4250kg if the vehicle has been adapted for the carriage of disabled passengers.
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